The steel industry accounts for 5% of the world's total energy consumption and contributes 6% of the world's anthropogenic CO 2 emissions. The control of CO 2 emissions has become increasingly stringent in various countries. The most advanced CO 2 emission reduction technology in the steel industry has reached a bottleneck; therefore, many countries have begun developing breakthrough CO 2 emission reduction technologies to cope with the current global climate change. Blast furnace (BF) ironmaking is the key production process in steel manufacturing. The development of low-carbon ironmaking technology based on the BF is an effective way to realize green evolvement of iron and steel industry. The current hot technologies of low-carbon BF ironmaking and innovative low-carbon BF ironmaking processes of the steel industry in various countries (including Europe, USA, Japan, etc.) are summarized in this paper; in addition, new ideas for China's steel industry to reduce CO 2 emissions are provided.