World Cement - November 2018

9 / 140

Annual subscription (published monthly): £160 UK
including postage/£175 (e245) overseas (postage
airmail)/US$280 USA/Canada (postage airmail).
Two year subscription (published monthly): £256 UK
including postage/£280 (e392) overseas (postage
airmail)/US$448 USA/Canada (postage airmail).
Claims for non receipt of issues must be made within
4 months of publication of the issue or they will not be
honoured without charge.
Applicable only to USA and Canada
WORLD CEMENT (ISSN No: 0263-6050, USPS No: 020-
996) is published monthly by Palladian Publications, GBR
and is distributed in the USA by Asendia USA, 17B S
Middlesex Ave, Monroe NJ 08831.
Periodicals postage paid New Brunswick, NJ and
additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send address
changes to World Cement, 701C Ashland Ave, Folcroft
PA 19032
Copyright© Palladian Publications Ltd 2018. All rights
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
the copyright owner. All views expressed in this journal
are those of the respective contributors and are not
necessarily the opinions of the publisher, neither do the
publishers endorse any of the claims made in the articles
or the advertisements.
Uncaptioned images courtesy of
Printed in the UK.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
CONTACT DETAILS
Managing Editor: James Little
Editor: Jonathan Rowland
JONATHAN ROWLAND, EDITOR
COMMENT
Contributing Editor: Paul Maxwell-Cook
Production: Hayley Hamilton-Stewart
Advertisement Director: Rod Hardy
Advertisement Manager: Ian Lewis
Advertisement Executive: Paul Heyworth
Website Manager: Tom Fullerton
Subscriptions: Laura White
Reprints
Digital Editorial Assistant:
Nicholas Woodroof
Editorial Assistant: Lucy Stewardson
Irreversible and catastrophic climate change. It is the greatest
challenge facing humanity. It will require all of our ingenuity,
creativity, and determination to prevent. And the timeframe
in which to prevent it is growing very short.
That was the message of the recent summary report
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
released last month at a meeting of the IPCC in Incheon in
South Korea. Reviewing more than 6000 scientific studies,
the report concludes that, “limiting global warming to 1.5˚C
would require rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”
Yet the benefits of keeping the temperature rise limited to 1.5˚C are significant.
Under a 1.5˚C scenario, sea level rise would be 10 cm lower than with a global
warming of 2˚C or more. Coral reefs would be decimated with 1.5˚C of warming, but some
(10 – 30%) would survive, as opposed to being virtually lost under a 2˚C rise. The Arctic
would be ice free only once a century with a temperature rise of 1.5˚C, compared to once a
decade with a rise of 2˚C.
It is not just the natural environment that would feel the impact. A warming of 1.5˚C
would give people more room to adapt and remain below relevant risk thresholds,
according to Hans-Otto Pörtner, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group II, which assesses the
impacts of climate change. At 1.5˚C, the proportion of global population could be 50%
lower than at 2˚C; food scarcity would be a more manageable challenge; millions fewer
people would be at risk of climate-related poverty or extreme weather events.
“It is a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and
we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, Pörtner’s Co-Chair of Working Group II. “This is the
largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilises people and dents
the mood of complacency.”
Roberts’ hope for mobilisation begs the question: who is it likely to mobilise? The
release of the report certainly whipped up a storm of media coverage. Although helpful,
media coverage quickly dies down and moves on to the next story. Current political
attitudes to climate change meanwhile seem to range from distracted to disinterested or
simple denial – none of which will facilitate the change required.
This is, however, at odds with public opinion. According to the Yale Program on
Climate Change Communication, in the US, an estimated 57% believe that global
warming is happening and is a result of human activities, while 62% believe that
Congress should do more to address global warming. Interestingly, this rises to 68%
when asked if companies should do more to address global warming and 65% when
asked if citizens should do more.
This last statistic offers a way forward. It is clear that, in many parts of the world,
the political will to advance the policies required to limit climate change is missing. This
puts the onus for change on companies and industries (such as cement) – and on their
shareholders, employees, customers, neighbours, as well as the general public.
“We see many governments failing to prepare for the future,” wrote Larry Fink,
Chairman and CEO of BlackRock Inc., to the corporate executives of public companies
back in January. “As a result, society increasingly is turning to the private sector and asking
the companies to respond to broader societal challenges […] Society is demanding that
companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose.”
The cement industry is not idle in this. As previously discussed, much good work is
already being done that the industry should rightly be proud of. The question should
instead be: can the industry do more – and with the necessary speed? If we are to
bequeath a future to the next generations, the answer must surely be, yes.