Displaying items by tag: Getting the Numbers Right

The Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA) has been cheerleading at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai this week with the release of a progress report on the sector’s work towards reaching net zero by 2050. The headline figures are that net CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious material fell by 23% in 2021 compared to 1990 based on Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) data. Energy efficiency improved by 19% and the fossil fuel component used by the cement sector has fallen to 80% from 98% in 1990. The GCCA has described 2020 - 2030 as the “decade to make it happen” and has set some targets to back this up. Its members intend to reduce CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement by 20% by 2030 compared to 2020 levels and concrete CO₂ emissions per m3 by 25% over the same time-frame.

The new developments for the cement sector at COP28 so far have been the launch of separate but apparently similar initiatives to help decarbonisation through coordination between nations. The Cement Breakthrough Agenda, backed by the government of Canada and other partners, follows the creation of the Breakthrough Agenda at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) whereby designated governments lead so-called ‘Priority Actions’ to decarbonise various sectors. The idea is to collaborate on measures such as policies, regulations and technologies to help reduce the cost of future investment in decarbonisation. The priority actions will be developed in 2023, worked towards in 2024 and then revised on a regular basis thereafter. The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also launched the so-called ‘Climate Club’ on 1 December 2023 to help developing nations invest in technologies to decarbonise sectors such as cement and steel production. The intention is to set up the technical groundwork for a standardised calculation of CO₂ intensity in selected products, such as cement and steel, set definitions on what net zero is for these sectors and then set up a platform to connect countries with funding and technical support from governments and the private sector. Neither the Cement Breakthrough Agenda nor the Climate Club has mentioned funding though.

Additionally, Holcim announced that it had become a founding member of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s SMI Circularity Task Force. The group aims to promote the circular economy to the private and public sector. Holcim was keen to point out that it is already recycling nearly 7Mt/yr of construction and demolition waste, with a target of 10Mt/yr pencilled in by 2025.

Other groups are not as upbeat as the GCCA though. The Global Carbon Project, for example, has estimated in its annual Global Carbon Budget that global fossil CO₂ emissions are set to rise by 1.4% year-on-year to 36.8Bnt in 2023. This figure includes both the CO₂ released by cement production and the CO₂ uptake from cement carbonation. Ongoing research by Robbie Andrew, a greenhouse gas emissions scientist at the CICERO Center for Climate Research in Norway and the Global Carbon Project, found that process emissions by the cement sector fell for the first time since 2015 in 2022, to reach 1.61Bnt. This decrease was most likely due to China’s falling cement production in 2022, stemming from a downturn in the local real estate sector. However, both the data from GCCA and the Global Carbon Project may be right simultaneously as they look at the emissions of the cement sector in different ways.

The GCCA’s job is to advocate for the cement and concrete sector and it is presenting itself well at COP28. Since its formation, it has set up roadmaps, encouraged collaboration and innovation, and is now reporting back on its progress. Net zero remains the goal by 2050, but the GCCA is being upfront about the role carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is expected to play after 2030 and the lack of any full-scale CCUS units so far. Yet it is tracking what has happened so far through the Green Cement Technology Tracker in conjunction with Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT).

As for the rest of COP28, various reports have been aired in the international press about whether the conference will call for a formal phase out of fossil fuels in some form or another. Whether it actually happens is another matter entirely, especially considering that the president of COP28 is the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and any eventual language would likely be vague. Yet the work by the GGCA and others has started to make the unthinkable a little more thinkable.

Readers may have noticed the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) is currently taking place at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Many of the cement companies, suppliers and related associations are present at the annual jamboree and getting stuck in. For example, Holcim’s chief sustainability officer Magali Anderson was scheduled on 8 November 2022 to discuss solutions to decarbonise the built environment at the event’s Building Pavilion, Cemex’s chief executive officer Fernando A González took part in the First Movers Coalition (FMC) panel, FLSmidth is down for a number of talks and both the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and World Cement Association are busy too.

Stone cold progress, if any, from the conference is yet to emerge although there is still time given that the event runs until 18 November 2022. No doubt some sort of ‘big message’ style international commitment or plan will emerge from the haggling. However, on the cement sector side, the biggest story so far has been the FMC plan for some of its members to procure at least 10% near-zero cement and concrete for its projects by 2030. Both Holcim and Cemex were founding members of the collation of companies that intend to use their purchasing power to support sustainable technologies in hard to abate sectors. Commitments for the aviation, shipping, steel and trucking sectors were set at COP26 in Glasgow, aluminium and CO₂ removal followed in May 2022 and chemicals and concrete were scheduled for November 2022. The latter has started to happen with the formation of the FMC’s cement and concrete group. Companies involved include ETEX, General Motors, Ørsted, RMZ Corporation and Vattenfall. Of these, Sweden-based energy producer Vattenfall has publicly said it is going for the 10% near-zero cement and concrete target by 2030.

Table 1: Net CO₂ emission intensity (kgCO2/t) for cement production at selected large cement producers.

While we wait for more announcements to escape from Sharm El Sheikh it might be worth reflecting upon one of the targets some of the cement companies have set themselves for 2030. Table 1 above compares the net CO₂ emission intensity for cement production at some of the large cement producers. It doesn’t tell us much, other than that the CO₂ emission intensity for these companies was in the region of 550 - 600kgCO₂/t of cementitious material in 2021. This compares to 580kgCO₂/t in 2020 for the GCCA’s Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) data for the companies it covers. The companies featured in Table 1 are all aiming – or appear to be aiming – for 475 - 525kgCO₂/t by 2030. This may not sound like much but it has and will require hard work, innovation, investment and risk on the part of the cement producers. This is also before carbon capture, utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) units will have been built at most cement plants. Yes, until the CO₂ emission intensity goes to down to zero, if cement production volumes keep rising sufficiently then total gross CO₂ emissions from the cement industry will also increase. Yet, gross CO₂ emissions from cement production are likely to peak sometime between now and 2030 if they haven’t already.

One sobering fact to end with is that 1990 is now further in the past than 2050 is in the future. If you can remember George Bush Sr as US president or you saw the film Goodfellas at the cinema then that’s the amount of time we have left to reach net zero. The global economic shocks of the post-coronavirus period and the war in Ukraine are stressing the world’s climate targets more than ever before. Let’s see how COP27 reacts to this. So far though, serious commitments to using low-carbon cement and concrete from big companies are a useful step to entrenching these products in the market.

World: A Systems Change Lab report on the state of climate change action has warned that the global cement industry is making insufficient progress towards its 2030 climate change targets and that a step-change in action is required. It recorded the carbon intensity of global cement production at 635kgCO₂/t in 2018 with the 2030 target of no more than 370kgCO₂/t. The rate of change over the previous five years was reported as being 2.9% but an annual rate of change of 22.5% would now be required to meet the 2030 target.

It also noted that emissions intensity from the cement industry had actually increased slightly in recent years. It reached this conclusion by using a different methodology from the Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) project. Instead it estimated the global emissions intensity by using global data on process emissions and energy data from the International Energy Agency and the GNR.

The report said that the cement sector would need to go beyond traditional mitigation options such as improving energy efficiency and switching fuels to meet its climate commitments. However, carbon capture utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) and novel cements were described as costly and immature. In its view, “Decarbonisation in the long term thus will depend on significant investments in research, development, and demonstration, alongside efforts to create a demand for low-carbon cements and policies to support investment in decarbonisation technologies.” It described both strategies as, “not yet fully mature in terms of technology development, costs and scaling.” The ‘critical enablers’ it identified to help the cement sector meet its target included stricter regulations, increased demand for low-carbon cement and investment in pilot and industrial scale projects looking at novel cements.

Overall, the report said that change towards averting climate change across 40 key areas in power generation, buildings, industry, transport, land use, coastal zone management and agriculture was not happening fast enough and that none were on track to meet their respective 2030 targets. Change was happening but not at the required pace. Systems Change Lab is a collaboration between the High-Level Climate Champions, Climate Action Tracker, ClimateWorks Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund and World Resources Institute.