We used to focus on emissions from vehicles or big factories, but there’s another kind of pollution which is treathening the goals set out in the Paris agreement. Indeed, a new report has noticed that greenhouse gas emissions from cement production are increasing at a worrying level.
The chemical processes to produce cement and concrete (the most consumed product after water) release carbon dioxide. A project, called Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which registers gas emissions from industries, published a report on Monday. In this report, CDP says that Indian companies are the most virtuous in the world, probably because of newer and more efficient manufacturing plants.
The European Union tried to fix emissions from cement production with the EU’s emissions trading scheme since 2005. In this way, allowances to produce carbon are given to each heavy industry. Who needs to produce more carbon has to buy spare permits from cleaner companies. The system is not only not enough to reduce emissions, but also not capable to control the price of permits, which often suffer a collapse due to over-allocation of allowances.
The CDP report that cement production releases about 6% of global carbon emissions. It’s the second biggest source of carbon dioxide after steel. The report recommends that biggest cement companies would double their efforts to reduce pollution or we couldn’t achieve Paris climate aims.
According to Paul Simpson, chief executive of CDP, companies has to look for new technologies to solve the problem. He explains: «Cement is a heavy and largely invisible emitter, yet taken for granted as a necessary building block of basic civilisation. Cement companies need to invest and innovate in order to avoid impending risks to their operations and the wider world. There is a solution – cement companies just need to invest properly in finding it».
The report, entitled Building Pressure, analysed 13 of the world’s biggest cement companies, which form about 16% of global cement production, with a total market capitalization of $150bn.