A study released this week finds that the global chemical industry has the possibility to make an important contribution to a low carbon future. It demonstrates how solutions from the chemical sector could enable significant emission reductions and support the UNFCCC Paris Agreement for restricting global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” by the end of the century.
Undertaken earlier this year by energy and climate experts Ecofys, a Navigant company, the study calculates avoided emissions across four key chemical industry value chains: buildings, transport, renewable power and food packaging. The findings show the chemical industry can deliver significant potential savings across all four value chains.
The study takes a stock-based approach and calculates two distinct approaches: The first approach estimates annual emission reductions if the solutions were used to their full potential right now and calculates that chemical industry contributions could reduce emissions by over 9 GtCO2 e each year - a reduction greater than the total annual emissions of the US. The second approach estimates the reductions enabled by the solutions in 2030 in a 2 degrees Celsius mitigation scenario as compared to a reference scenario and finds that solutions provided by the chemical industry could reduce emissions by 2.5 GtCO2 e per year – equivalent to total emissions from France, Germany, Italy and the UK combined.
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