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Green Innovation Chemical Industry Tackles Biggest Transformation in its History

From Armin Scheuermann 9 min Reading Time

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It is a mammoth undertaking: Most nations want to become climate-neutral by 2050 – and with them the companies in the chemical industry. Because on the one hand it produces energy-intensively, and on the other it cannot do without carbon, the chemical industry is having a particularly hard time decarbonizing. But this only spurs the industry's researchers and engineers on even more.

The large western corporations want to operate in a climate-neutral manner by 2050 at the latest and have set themselves milestones. (Source: © AdobeStock_569615125_WD Stockphotos)
The large western corporations want to operate in a climate-neutral manner by 2050 at the latest and have set themselves milestones.
(Source: © AdobeStock_569615125_WD Stockphotos)

Time is pressing and the budget is limited. What applies to almost all areas of life also applies in particular to global greenhouse gas emissions. 196 nations had already agreed in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to below 2 °C and, if possible, not to exceed even 1.5 °C. Climate researchers have calculated what is needed to achieve this – not only in percentage terms, but also in absolute figures: in 2018, the emissions budget for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was still 800 gigatonnes. According to estimates by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, this was the maximum amount of CO2 that the global community was allowed to release into the Earth's atmosphere at that time without jeopardizing the target of +1.8°C. But the clock is ticking: Because fossil fuels were also used between 2018 and 2022, the budget has been reduced by an average of 36.4 Gt per year since then - which means that 618 gigatonnes remain from 2023.

The largest emitters have therefore set concrete targets: China, with a share of 32.9 % of annual global CO2 emissions (2021), and Russia (5.1 %) want to become climate neutral by 2060, the USA (12.6 %) and Europe (7.3 %) already by 2050, India (7.0 %) only by 2070 and the chemical nations Japan (2.9 %) and South Korea (1.7 %) by 2050. But a simple rough calculation shows: Emissions must fall significantly sooner in order to meet the budget. With unabated carbon dioxide emissions, the emissions budget would already be exhausted by 2040.

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