Companies that manufacture steel, aluminum, cement and chemicals, can turn to new business models and technologies to cut emissions. Read More. This article was originally published in Circulate News. Read it here. The transition to renewable energy is an essential part of the fight against climate change. But it will only address 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve net-zero emissions by , to meet the target set in the Paris Agreement, the remaining 45 percent of emissions from industry, agriculture and land-use need to be addressed as well.
The materials industry, which comprises companies that manufacture raw materials such as steel, aluminum, cement and chemicals, is responsible for a large share of these remaining emissions and therefore has a key role to play. Globally, the production of cement accounts for 8 percent of CO2 emissions , in the case of ammonia each tonne produced emits 2. Overall, the materials industry is responsible for 27 percent of global CO2 emissions including energy-related emissions.
To reduce these emissions, the materials industry faces a limited number of options which may involve the use of low-carbon energy energy generated using lower amounts of carbon emissions such as wind, solar or nuclear power : low-carbon production processes, carbon capture or material recycling.
However, most of these solutions are neither effective nor available at scale. For instance, about two-thirds of the emissions of cement production result from calcination, the chemical reaction that occurs when limestone is exposed to high temperatures. Most low-carbon production processes are still to be developed. Heavy industries have prospered for over a century using largely unchanged manufacturing processes. Steel has been made essentially the same way for thousands of years, by using carbon as a chemical reductant.
Ammonia has been made for a century with the Haber-Bosch process that emits more CO2 than any other chemical-making reaction. Although capturing carbon from industrial processes and preventing it from entering the atmosphere is promising, most technologies either lack a clear business case or are not yet commercially available.
