Analysis commissioned by Greenpeace East Asia shows that, despite having met and exceeded ambitious capacity cut targets for 2016, China’s steel industry last year saw a net increase in operating capacity equivalent to more than twice the UK’s total capacity. An average 74% of cut capacity was already idle, while previously idle plants were restarted and more than offset cuts in operating capacity. With steel the largest polluting sector in northern China’s pollution-hit provinces, the increase in operating capacity will pose a major obstacle to the government’s “war on air pollution”.