Energy-intensive industries: decision making for a low-carbon future

The cement industry is a major source of CO2 emissions, accounting for about 5 per cent of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Securing reductions in these emissions is critical if wider targets for emissions cuts—including the reductions of 80–95 per cent by 2050 set out in the EU roadmap and the reduction of 50–80 per cent by 2050 deemed necessary by the IPCC—are to be achieved. This paper aims to shed some light on the ways in which policy-makers can deal effectively with the tension between the need to achieve these ambitious mitigation targets and the need to minimize the economic impacts of climate policy in the very energy-intensive sectors where such mitigation may be most sorely needed.