The UK recently broke something of an unhappy record with temperatures on 19 July hitting the 40°C (104°F) mark for the first time. For a day or so, the weather across much of a country renowned for its mild and rainy climate resembled that of Phoenix, Arizona.
Unlike Arizona, however, the UK is simply not set up to cope with this kind of heat, not least because the vast majority of homes have no air conditioning. Over the two day period covered by the Met Office’s first ever ‘red’ heat warning: fires broke out (the London Fire Brigade endured its busiest day since the Second World War, reporting 2600 calls instead of the usual upper limit of 500), the runway at Luton airport developed a ‘surface defect’ requiring it to be closed, and train services were disrupted as rails reached 62°C (143.6°F), causing them to warp and buckle.
And it’s not just the UK that has been dealing with the consequences of soaring temperatures over recent weeks; high temperatures have seen France’s Gironde region suffer from two devastating wildfires that have destroyed more than 20 000 hectares of forest, displaced thousands, and required 1800 firefighters and seven helicopters to stabilise. Fires caused by extreme heat have also broken out in Portugal, Greece, and elsewhere on the continent.
According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we are already living in the hottest period for 125 000 years and, since the beginning of the industrial era, the global average temperature has already risen by 1.1°C. This in itself doesn’t sound too dramatic, but it is the knock-on effects caused by this increase that drive extreme climate events. Prof Stephen Belcher, Chief of Science & Technology at the Met Office made it clear when interviewed by the BBC that the 40°C temperatures recently experienced in the UK would have been “virtually impossible” without manmade greenhouse gas emissions.
This is why it’s never been more important for the cement industry to continue its drive to cut emissions and ultimately reach net zero. It’s also why it’s reassuring to see industry leaders taking solid steps towards this goal. Below are just a few announcements from recent weeks:
- HeidelbergCement’s ANRAV CCUS project in Bulgaria has received EU funding. The project will link carbon capture facilities at Devnya Cement through a pipeline system with offshore permanent storage under the Black Sea.
- CEMEX has signed a ten-year agreement to purchase 100% clean electricity from ACCIONA Energía to cover 30% of the electric power required for CEMEX’s cement operations in Spain.
- Holcim has secured two investments from the EU Innovation Fund for its breakthrough CCUS projects in Germany and Poland.
Large-scale projects and agreements like these (along with an ongoing drive for efficiency improvements and optimisation throughout the industry) will be vital to ensuring the viability of the cement industry’s path to net zero. World Cement will be there to keep you updated every step of the way.
