Cement, Energy & Environment

( Technology Roadmap in New Delhi on 25 1 h February 2013, outlining low-carbon growth pathways for the Indian Cement Industry. The event focused on bringing together key cement industry manufacturers working to ensure a low-carbon growth pathway for the industry, with key stakeholders who can support its implementation, from Government of India agencies , Financial Institutions, Research Institutes, and National Governments. Shri T Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry at the launch acknowledge the considerable efforts made by CSI towards the development of the low carbon technology roadmap for the cement industry in India. Welcoming the analysis , he urged the industry to come up with innovative solutions. With depleting limestone reserves, newer materials and newer technologies are needed for India's infrastructure development. Mr. Philippe Fanta, WBCSD CSI, Managing Director stated that "CSI member companies in India are able, thanks to IFC support, to scale up the implementation of low-carbon solutions in their own plants and across the cement industry more broadly. This will help ensure that leading companies in the CSI can continue to provide the growing volumes of cement required from the Indian market, and do this in a low-carbon and energy efficient manner." Maria van der Hoeven, lEA Executive Director applauded the Indian cement industry and the IFC for their initiative to undertake a Second phase focusing on roadmap implementation and for their efforts to transition the Indian cement industry to a low-carbon pathway. Thomas Davenport, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Director for South Asia mentioned that this technology roadmap is a unique example of one industry collectively supporting India 's low-carbon development goals. According to the roadmap, India's fast– growing cement industry can reduce its carbon emissions by nearly half by 2050. The initiative, supported by the IFC, was developed in collaboration with Cll and NCB. The report outlines a way for the Indian Cement Industry to reduce its C0 2 emissions in 2050 by atleast 210 Mt C0 2 compared to a business-as-usual scenario. The savings roughly equal the total C0 2 emissions of Thailand in 2009. This transition will also result in energy benefits, reducing energy consumption by atleast 375 petajoules - which is as much as the current annual energy consumption in Sri Lanka. Recognizing the Indian Cement Industry as one of the most efficient in the World , making strong efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, the Report identifies opportunities for further improvements, and sets outs milestones in the roadmap to enhance the country's energy security by limiting the growth in energy consumption i.e. in absolute emissions to just a doubling or at most a 240% increase, with a further reduction in the direct C0 2 emissions intensity (to 0.35 t C0 2 /t cement) by about 45% from current levels by 2050. The Report mentions, while recognizing that the targeted reductions as ambitious, identifies decisive action by all stakeholders as critical to realize the vision by achieving the proposed levels of efficiency improvements and emissions reduction . For this government and industry must join hands to take collaborative actions in creating an investment climate that will stimulate the scale-up of financing required. The roadmap and technical papers are available at www.wbcsdcement.org/india – tech-roadmap.