China Building Materials Federation, clearly pointed out that the cement industry has achieved carbon peak ahead of schedule, and the building materials industry has achieved carbon peak in an all-round way, and the era of carbon neutralization is coming. This conclusion is based on the scientific judgment of the development trend of the cement industry.
In terms of output, China's cement output reached a historical peak of 2.49 billion tons in 2014, and the output of cement clinker was 1.42 billion tons in that year. In 2020, China's cement clinker output reached a historical peak of 1.58 billion tons, and the output of cement was 2.38 billion tons in that year. From the perspective of carbon emissions, since the peak of 1.23 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in China's cement industry in 2020, it has declined for two consecutive years in 2021 and 2022, with a cumulative decline of 13.9%, and is expected to continue to decline in 2023. Considering the macro environment, technological development and market changes, it can be determined that the carbon emissions of the cement industry may fluctuate in the future, but the carbon peak has been achieved. The macro environment
with "double carbon" as the core has been improved, and the cement industry will continue to guide the transformation of carbon reduction. In October 2021, the Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing the New Development Concept Completely, Accurately and Comprehensively to Do a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization Work, and the State Council's Action Plan for Carbon Peak by 2030 were issued one after another, which completed the overall deployment of China's carbon peak and carbon neutralization work from the top-level design. Taking this as a symbol, the guiding documents for carbon emission reduction planning in various fields and regions, such as the implementation plan of carbon peak in building materials industry, the implementation plan of energy carbon peak in building materials industry, the implementation guidelines for energy saving and carbon reduction in key areas of high energy-consuming industries, and the steady growth plan of building materials industry, have been issued one after another. The construction of the national carbon emission trading market in the cement industry and the comprehensive implementation of the ultra-low emission transformation in the cement industry have been accelerated. It indicates that the macro environment for systematically and comprehensively promoting the green and low-carbon transformation and development of the building materials industry has been established. China's cement industry carbon emissions account for about 83% of the building materials industry carbon emissions, 10% of the total national carbon emissions, and 3% of the total global carbon emissions. Carbon emission reduction will become a long-term task of the cement industry, and the development direction of carbon emission reduction in the cement industry is irreversible. The rapid development of
energy-saving and carbon reduction technology has continuously promoted the improvement of carbon reduction in the cement industry. Focusing on the goal of "double carbon", in 2022, the China Building Materials Federation organized a systematic review of the applicable technology and cutting-edge technology system of the cement industry, and compiled the Technical Guidelines for Carbon Emission Reduction in the Cement Industry, which provided guidance and support for enterprises to upgrade their energy saving and carbon reduction. The rapid development of energy-saving and carbon-reducing technologies, technologies and equipment, such as large-scale substitution technologies for raw materials and fuels, oxygen-enriched combustion in cement kilns, and complete sets of low-energy cement grinding technology and equipment, has accelerated the improvement of energy efficiency in the cement industry. Cement enterprises have taken energy-saving and carbon-reducing transformation and upgrading as the primary task of production and management. At present, the energy consumption of cement clinker per unit product has been reduced to less than 50 kgce/t in domestic production enterprises, and the comprehensive energy consumption of cement grinding can be reduced to 20 kWh/t. By the end of the first half of 2023, the comprehensive energy consumption per unit product of cement clinker will decrease by 3% compared with 2020, and the proportion of cement clinker production capacity reaching or exceeding the energy efficiency benchmark value will reach 13%, which will increase by more than 10 percentage points compared with 2020. In order to further explore the potential of carbon reduction in the cement industry, since 2021, the China Building Materials Federation has continuously organized and carried out scientific and technological research around the major processes, technologies, equipment, products of energy saving, pollution reduction and carbon reduction in the building materials industry, as well as the construction of the "60" demonstration plant. Significant progress has been made in key technologies such as green hydrogen energy calcination of cement clinker, carbon dioxide conversion and utilization of cement kiln flue gas, and the construction of "zero fossil" energy demonstration plants, which will further support carbon emission reduction and carbon neutralization in the cement industry. In addition, the development and application of low-carbon cement products, as well as the refinement and reduction of cement clinker under the peak demand of building carbon, will continue to promote carbon emission reduction in the cement industry. The trend of low-carbon technology development in cement industry is irreversible. The demand for
cement products remained stable and declined, which continued to drive the cement industry to reduce carbon and improve quality. Since the new era, China's economic structure has accelerated adjustment, consumption has played a more important role in stimulating China's economy than investment, and the investment rate has dropped from 47% in the peak period to about 43%. In recent years, the adjustment of real estate industry is obvious. In 2022, the completed investment of real estate development enterprises will decrease by 13.2%, and in 2023, it is expected to continue to decrease by more than 9.0%. The proportion of traditional infrastructure in fixed assets investment will be significantly reduced, and the pull on the cement industry will gradually weaken. Weakening demand has led to a continuous decline in cement production. Since 2021, China's cement production has been declining for three consecutive years, and is expected to decline by 15% in 2023 compared with 2020. Referring to the development experience of major economies in the world such as Europe and the United States, with the adjustment of China's economic structure, the proportion of investment rate will further decline, and the demand for cement products will gradually decline. Combined with the factors such as the refinement and reduction of cement products, it is estimated that the demand for cement in China will drop to less than 1.8 billion tons by 2030. The total production of cement products has been reduced, and the pursuit of effective improvement of quality has been turned to, which has led to an irreversible downward trend of carbon emissions in the cement industry.
To sum up, we can clearly analyze and judge that the cement industry has achieved carbon peak, but carbon peak is not the ultimate goal of industry development, but a new starting point for industry development. The cement industry should recognize the changes in the situation, adhere to scientific and technological innovation as the starting point, constantly promote carbon emission reduction, actively plan carbon neutralization, layout of new development, reshape the industry positioning and value shaping, and actively promote the formation of a modern building materials industry system from a higher level and more systematic, so as to be able to respond to this overall and systematic change more fully, safely and timely.
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