The world has finally hammered out a climate agreement at the COP24 climate conference in Katowice. Greta Thunberg emerged as the unlikely star of the summit. She told negotiators:
You are not mature enough to tell it like it is
She's 15 years old. Watch her speech:
We are not prepared to die. We are not going to become the first victims of the climate crisis. Instead, we are going to do everything in our power to keep our heads above water.
But almost 10 years since I was last at these climate negotiations, I must say, nothing much seems to have changed. We are still using the same old, dinosaur language.
Carbon emissions are rising, rising and rising and all we seem to be doing is talking, talking and talking.
Cement industry leaders were also at the summit. As the BBC reported today in Climate change: The massive CO2 emitter you may not know about:
Cement is the source of about 8% of the world's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to think tank Chatham House... It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%)
Chatham House argues that... If the sector has any hope of meeting its commitments to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, it will need to look at overhauling the cement-making process itself, not only reducing the use of fossil fuels.
In other news, Aggregate Industries has recently published its 2017 Sustainability Report.
It turns out – as we posted in If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed – that AI under-reported its CO2 figures in its 2016 Sustainability Report. The company 'forgot' to report half of its CO2 emissions from cement production, which it has now belatedly included in the 2017 report:
For the first time we have reported the limestone calcination emissions produced in the manufacture of cement for both 2016 and 2017. These figures represent the emissions from the chemical transformation from limestone to clinker.
How many tonnes of CO2 did AI under-report in 2016?
About one tonne of CO2 is emitted for every tonne of cement produced: around half a tonne from the energy required and half a tonne from the chemical process itself.
More precisely, the Mineral Products Association fact sheet on embodied CO2e of UK cement puts the average cement emissions at 849 kg CO2e/tonne for MPA Cement Member Companies (which includes Lafarge Cement UK – now part of AI), of which 50% to 60% is from the chemical process.
How much cement does AI produce? According to AI's own website, the company manufactures in excess of 1.4 million tonnes of cement annually:
Putting the more conservative numbers together (1.4 million tonnes x 849 kg CO2e/tonne x 50%) means AI neglected to report around 600,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2016. Indeed, AI has now revised its emissions figure for 2016 from 17.88 to 31.68 Kg CO2e/tonne which, across 44 million tonnes of production, also equates to around 600,000 tonnes. It's a sizeable number to overlook, given that it's more than twice the amount AI used to emit each year. Here's what 600,000 tonnes of CO2 is equivalent to:
Is AI still under reporting its emissions?
AI’s latest sustainability report claims the company produced a total of around 44 million tonnes of material in 2017. Total emissions are stated as 28.76 kg CO2e/tonne, which equates to around 1.27 million tonnes of CO2 emitted last year. Of this, cement emissions would make up around 1.19 million tonnes of CO2 (1.4 million tonnes x 849 kg CO2e/tonne). Plainly the rest of the business (in excess of 42 million tonnes of production) is responsible for more than the 80k tonnes of CO2 difference (1.27 million - 1.19 million) – so either AI is suddenly producing considerably less than 1.4 million tonnes of cement, or something is awry.
What progress has AI achieved in 2017? In 2016, the company said "Energy and carbon reduction continues to be a challenge and are key areas of focus for us". Despite this key area of focus, AI’s "energy use remained very similar in 2017".
The company claims that "overall our carbon footprint has fallen by 9%", but recognises that this is:
... in part due to a reduction in the UK government’s conversion factor for grid supplied electricity and in part due to our increasing use of waste-derived fuels in our cement operations and switching to less CO2 intensive fuels in other operations.
In other words, AI can thank the investment by others in renewable low carbon energy sources that resulted in UK wind and solar power hitting record highs in 2017.
Whatever AI's narrative, it’s now clear that the company is a far larger emitter of CO2 than it once was. In 2007, the company reported:
In our first report in 2000, our reported emissions for 1999 were 228,267 tonnes of CO2. In 2007 this has increased to 450,390 tonnes ...
AI's now emitting nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, more than 5x the amount in 1999.
Does AI's latest sustainability report point to a company that recognises the climate emergency that humanity faces? Readers can decide for themselves. If it's any guide – the word "carbon" was referred to 52x in AI's 2008 Sustainability Report – and just 12x in 2017. But if the company's energy use is not falling – the graphics are certainly louder:
Of course, AI says "changed significantly" because it can't bring itself to tell it as it is, to say "gone up significantly". This is worrying, given that:
The first step in solving a problem is to recognise that it does exist.
What is also worrying is that after the terrible extreme weather events that have hit various parts of the world this year, and after the urgent warnings from the IPCC that "we all have to fundamentally change the way we live our lives", you might have hoped that this major emitter of CO2 would have done more than re-establish a baseline.
Because we've heard about establishing baselines before – in 2012, 2008, 2003 – and the company has consistently failed to achieve any progress against them. Let's look, for example, at how AI fared against its 2012 baseline:
2013: Absolute process carbon emissions have increased against the 2012 baseline
2014: Absolute carbon process emissions continue to rise and are now 13% higher than the baseline year
2015: Absolute process carbon emissions continue to rise and are 20% above the 2012 baseline
2016: No mention of baselines
AI has talked about reducing its CO2 emissions for more than 15 years, and has achieved exactly the reverse. It is plainly in denial: denial about having to do anything to change the way it operates, denial about having to do anything to reduce its contribution to an impending climate catastrophe.
Let's finish by moving from baselines and hollow promises from a corporate polluter, to instead picking out some of the wise words from Greta Thunberg:
You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess, even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake.
Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous amounts of money.
You say you love your children above all else and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.
We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.
