Copenhagen cement

As the world descends on Copenhagen for the 15^th UN Climate Change Conference, what is the cement industry doing to lessen its' carbon footprint? Chris Sleight spoke to Cement Sustainability Initiative programme director Dr Howard Klee.

This month will see politicians, businesses, scientists, non-government organisations and all manner of other stakeholders descend on Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference.

It will be the 15^th time the 192 countries that have signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have met following the establishment of this treaty at a summit in Rio, Brazil in 1992.

The key focus of these annual meetings is of course on emissions of greenhouse gasses, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). It is the build-up of these gasses in the earth's atmosphere that are thought to be causing the earth's temperature to rise.

At first glance, the construction industry does not seem to be a prime CO2 emitting culprit compared to transport or energy-hungry manufacturing processes. However, the production of cement releases huge amounts of this gas into the atmosphere - not just through the energy consumed in cement kilns, but also from the chemical reaction that takes within them. In fact for every tonne of cement clinker manufactured, almost the same mass of CO2 is released into the atmosphere.

After water, cement is the most widely used material on the plant, and in the region of 2.5 billion tonnes is manufactured every year. Even if the most efficient kilns were used everywhere in the world that would still equate to more than 2 billion tonnes of CO2.

Not surprising then that the sector is being targeted to cut its emissions. But what is unusual about the cement sector is that it is the industry itself that is taking the lead through the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), which is organised under the auspices of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and includes the ‘household names' in the cement industry - the likes of Lafarge, Holcim, Cemex and so on.

CO2 accounting

One of the most important initiatives to come out of the CSI in recent years has been its ‘Getting the Numbers Right' project, which has seen solid and credible statistics gathered on cement production and emissions, to help the industry find the best way to reduce CO2.

But even with this data available, it is a complex challenge due to different laws and policies in place on emissions in different parts of the world. This is why the WBCSD is advocating what it describes as a ‘Sectoral Approach', which is to say that cement companies will take the lead internationally with the best technologies, but work within the national and regional policy frameworks they find in different parts of the world.

CSI programme director Dr Howard Klee explained further, "One reason for this sectoral approach was to come up with policies that would engage emerging economies. Today about 80% of the world's cement is produced in emerging economies. We need to have a system that does not penalise emerging economies, but allows them to participate," he said

He continued, "Clearly the policy that produces the most emission reductions is having a cap (on CO2 emissions) in place globally, but more than 50% of the world says they're not going to do that. We just didn't think that was practical at this stage - maybe further down the road it could work."

But one concern that has been voiced is that this scenario of limits on carbon in only one or two regions of the world will lead to a phenomenon called ‘carbon leakage'. The worry is that it will be cheaper to produce cement outside such tightly controlled areas and then ship it in, undercutting local producers that have to pay extra to emit CO2.

Besides the question of fairness, this would be counterproductive on a global level. Not only would the transportation of cement add unnecessary CO2, but it may also come from less energy efficient plants.

Dr Klee said, "It's a legitimate concern. Cement is traded internationally and if the carbon price differences get to be large enough between different parts of the world you'll drive that. All you need to do is match the marginal production cost plus transportation, and at the moment transportation is awfully cheap. There are lots of empty ships sitting around at the moment, although three years ago that was not the case.

"The modelling we did said that if you had a cap in place in Europe and the rest of the world did nothing, you would see 30% to 40% of cement production come from outside Europe."

"Part of the sectoral approach is to combine with that policies that address that issue. In Europe for example the difference between (carbon) allocations that are free against auctioning makes a huge difference. Allowance allocations that are free would more or less dissolve the problem of leakage because it's much less expensive - you don't have to put all the money out upfront."

China

This is all very well, but the key player in reducing emissions from cement production is China. About half the world's cement is manufactured in China, and Dr Klee admits that at the moment it is a big gap, although he sees changes afoot.

"We're about to get several Chinese members into the CSI - certainly by the end of the year. That will certainly boost coverage, because at the moment we're limited to the operations of the international members of the CSI, which represents only about 5% of production.

It may be a black hole at the moment in terms of statistics, but Dr Klee said there was still reason to believe the industry was improving its standards.

"One of the biggest, most obvious problems is the scale. Lots and lots of companies - it's a very fragmented industry. The Chinese have been consolidating it over the last few years, and they've also been shutting down plants over the last two years. Last year they closed something like 65 million tonnes of capacity, and they actually tore down the old plants - so they're serious. This year the number is more like 100 million tonnes, so those two numbers combined are close to the total capacity in Europe.

"So they are moving, and they are building new plants that are much better than the old ones. There is a movement from small vertical shaft kilns which have no emission controls and are relatively inefficient to larger, typical, state of the art plants," he said.

Copenhagen outcome?

Speaking to Dr Klee, it is clear he is convinced the industry is moving in the right direction, and that the sectoral approach the CSI is advocating will be the best way forward.

However, he is not ruling out other policies, and his hope from the Copenhagen meeting is for a pragmatic approach. "We would like to see a framework put in place that includes a menu of different mechanisms, and some of the details fleshed out about how they could fit together," he said.

In conclusion, Dr Klee added, "Frankly, given the size of the problem, we're going to need all the options we can dream up."