Industry experts call for decarbonisation of India’s cement sector

Highlighting the requirement for standard road mapping to decarbonise India’s cement sector, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses, stakeholders, industry representatives, and experts asked for interventions in the green sector. The sector, the developing block of modern infrastructure, leaves behind a large carbon imprint. Yet, technological solutions which would permit close to the zero-emissions generation of cement are within reach. Indian industry has made significant progress in decreasing energy emissions. But to achieve long-term sustainable development, more fundamental changes are needed, Dr Vibha Dhawan, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) Director-General, told the media, at the workshop on ‘Virtual Roadmap Workshop for Decarbonisation of Cement Sector in India’. TERI is a local partner for the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT), rolled out by Sweden and India at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019, and the two together are operating towards preparing a sectoral roadmap for the cement and steel sector. The workshop was together organised by the TERI, LeadIT Secretariat, and the Strategic Partnership for the Implementation of Paris Agreement (SPIPA) here. In her presentation, Head of Global Agendas, Climate & Systems Division, Dr Somya Joshi highlighted industry roadmap planners are vital for knowledge sharing, accepting a structural approach to setting and attaining targets, as well as evading bottlenecks. Ambitious goals are often put in place, but it is significant to plug the gap between rhetoric and reality. Cement industry representative Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Limited MD & CEO, Mahendra Singhi, noted that the carbon capture, its usage or storage, is critical to make the Indian cement sector net-zero. Image Source Also read: BALCO rolls out first fly-ash rake for green cement production