Manufacturing a low-carbon society: how can we reduce emissions from cement and steel?
Deploying current technologies to decarbonise the steel and cement industries is unlikely to be sufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5?C limit, according to a new Climate Action Tracker (CAT) study - "Manufacturing a low-carbon society: how can we reduce emissions from cement and steel?". The steel and cement industries both have large emissions profiles. In 2015, around five percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions came from the steel industry—accounting for around 2.8 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) per year. Cement-related emissions have nearly doubled their share of global greenhouse gas emissions—rising from 2.8 percent in 1990 to 5.5 percent in 2010, reaching more than 2.6 GtCO2e per year. Decarbonisation of our energy system, (i.e., the transition towards net-zero CO2 emissions), can be achieved through higher energy efficiency, a zero-carbon electricity supply, electrification of residual demand, and zero-carbon fuels.