Editorial comment
The Mediterranean is on fire once again. Extreme temperatures have returned and unleashed wildfires across nine countries on two continents. One of the worst hit is Algeria where 34 people have already died and 8000 firefighters have been deployed in an attempt to contain blazes across the north of the country. Fires raging on the island of Rhodes have forced authorities to organise what has been described as “the biggest evacuation” in Greek history with 20 000 people fleeing homes and hotels; the island of Corfu has also seen roughly 2500 people forced to flee. Fires have even erupted across the island of Sicily, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, France, and elsewhere.
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As to what has caused these apocalyptic scenes in one of the areas of the world historically most suitable for human habitation, the answer is simple: climate change. The team at World Weather Attribution (WWA), which includes researchers from Imperial College London and The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute amongst others, has released a study showing that this year’s Mediterranean wildfires would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change and that temperatures were 2.5°C hotter than they would otherwise have been.
And this is not a strictly Mediterranean problem; July also saw temperature records broken in China, the US – all of which would have been far less likely to occur without the contribution of man-made greenhouses gasses. Nor is 2023 an outlier: whilst 3 – 10 July was the world’s hottest week on record, the impact of El Niño will likely see these records broken again in 2024 with the world’s average temperature rising by at least 1.5°C for the first time.
All of that paints a pretty bleak picture, but it’s just a taste of what a future with no significant climate change mitigation would look like. The good news is that there is still time to limit the impact of climate change and mitigate the disruption. By taking the right steps, working with governments, and deploying the right technologies and processes, it’s possible for most industries to make significant steps towards decarbonisation. As readers of World Cement will be well aware, significant decarbonisation is possible even in historically ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors like cement production.
Cement producers across the world are already taking steps to limit their emissions through the use of alternative fuels, SCMs, waste heat recovery, process optimisation, and a range of other technologies.
Even CCUS, that seemingly once unreachable ‘holy grail’ of climate technologies is gradually coming closer to commercial reality as major industry players invest in dozens of trial projects around the world. Pilot projects such as at Rohrdorfer’s plant in Germany or Lafarge’s Richmond plant in Canada are key steps in proving the viability of this technology. This is all the more important when, according to the GCCA, CCUS will have to account for 36% of all CO2 emissions from cement production by 2050 if we are to reach net zero.
If you want to meet with cement industry leaders, technical experts, and peers from around the world, then be sure to join us in Lisbon, Portugal for World Cement’s first in-person conference and Exhibition: EnviroTech on 10 – 13 March 2024. For more infofmation and registration, visit: www.worldcement.com/envirotech2024
