Cement can be used in many ways, but it has a large CO2 footprint. Now the group wants to tackle the problem.
(Photo: HeidelbergCement AG)
Berlin The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference has only just begun, and the mood is already better than in many years before. “Perhaps you will experience me a little over-euphoric,” says Jochen Flasbarth in Glasgow, where the State Secretary from the Ministry of the Environment will have a virtual meeting with German company representatives on Wednesday. In the past few days it has become very clear that the various industries are on their way to becoming climate neutral, according to Flasbarth.
This is confirmed by Dominik vonhaben, CEO of Heidelberg Cement AG, Annika Roth, head of Blechwarenfabrik Limburg, and Roland Harings, CEO of copper producer and recycler Aurubis.
“We accept the challenge, we also take our responsibility damn seriously,” says vonhaben. “As a company, we have set ourselves ambitious climate protection goals and are working worldwide to quickly scale the necessary technologies.”
With concrete, Heidelberg Cement has a “building material that is in great demand worldwide”. It is versatile, but has a large carbon footprint. One wants to be part of the solution to reduce this footprint, so von Acht.
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Demand for fair competition protection
“It is the decade of implementation,” he continues, and calls for decisive political action with a view to pricing CO2, combined with “fair competition protection”. Specifically, he mentions a CO2 border adjustment, known in technical jargon as the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism” (CBAM), and also a share of free emission certificates for the emission of greenhouse gases.
Climate neutrality is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage, says Aurubis boss Harings, but also calls for protection in the transformation phase. He is not convinced of a CO2 border adjustment, so Harings. “I fear an unbelievable complexity with a lot of loopholes and a lot of difficulties in implementation.”
For him, the focus is more on contracts for difference, so-called Carbon Contracts for Difference (CCfD). The public sector undertakes to undertake to companies to bear the additional costs compared to investments in conventional technology when investing in new, climate-neutral processes.
Both Heidelberg Cement and Aurubis are not only members of the 2 Grad Foundation, but also belong to the United Nations’ “Race to Zero” initiative. If you want to be part of this initiative, you don’t just have to commit to becoming climate neutral by 2050 at the latest. It is also about taking the path by 2030 that can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times.
Within one year of accession, companies must submit an action plan on how they intend to achieve the 2030 and 2050 targets and report annually on their progress.
The company only put a system to reduce fine dust emissions into operation in October. Aurubis wants to become climate neutral “well before 2050”.
(Photo: dpa)
The 2 Grad Foundation is an association of companies that feel particularly committed to climate protection, but also regularly demand political support. “Climate neutrality can become a new trademark,” says Sabine Nallinger, director of the foundation.
With this, Germany could show that it can succeed in making a leading industrial country climate-neutral and still maintaining prosperity.
“Aurubis produces metals for the megatrends of the future – renewable energies, e-mobility or digitalization,” says Harings. “We want to become climate neutral well before 2050.”
Like Annika Roth from Blechwarenfabrik Limburg, he criticized the fact that what exactly climate neutrality actually meant and which measures had an impact on the company’s own balance sheet had not yet been adequately defined. For example, Aurubis is already feeding CO2-free heat into Hamburg’s district heating network in Hamburg, but this is not counted positively for the company.
The climate conference in Glasgow started on Monday. Until November 12th, almost 200 states are negotiating ways to more climate protection, financial aid for poorer countries and still unanswered questions about the implementation of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
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