Global CO2 emissions from cement production

GCP-CEM: The Global Carbon Project CEMent-process emissions dataset

This is an update of the dataset documented in:

Andrew, R.M., 2019. Global CO2 emissions from cement production, 1928–2018. Earth System Science Data 11, 1675–1710. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-1675-2019.

Data in this release cover the period 1880–2023.

Note that emissions from use of fossil fuels in cement production are not included in this dataset since they are usually included elsewhere in global datasets of fossil CO2 emissions. The process emissions in this dataset, which result from the decomposition of carbonates in the production of cement clinker, amounted to ~1.6 Gt CO2 in 2022, while emissions from combustion of fossil fuels to produce the heat required amounted to an additional ~1.0 Gt CO2 in 2022.

May 2024 release (240517): Changes

• Various revisions to 2022 and 2023 estimates based on newly published data
• Additional start years added via zero_before_after.csv

The Cement Production dataset

Annual cement production data by country are assembled from a number of sources. Prioritisation is given to national sources, whether directly from statistical offices or activity data reported in official emissions reports submitted to the UNFCCC. Where official sources are not used, data are sourced from the USGS Minerals Yearbooks. Some data points in the USGS dataset are corrected based on either sense-checks or information from alternative sources. For data before 1990, USGS data are obtained via back-calculation from the 2019 edition of the CDIAC emissions dataset. The first year for most countries in the USGS data is 1928; where the combined dataset shows zeros before 1928 and non-zero data from 1928, these zeros are assumed to be artefacts and are set to NODATA. Using available data for some former Soviet states before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Soviet states are disaggregated for all years before dissolution. Every data point in the cement production dataset has its source indicated in the accompanying source file. Blank cells should be interpreted as NODATA.

The Clinker Production dataset

Annual clinker production data by country are assembled from a number of sources. No such multi-country dataset exists elsewhere to our knowledge. Many countries report 'activity data' in their emissions reporting to the UNFCCC, and for the Cement Production sector (2.A.1), this is often clinker production. For all Annex 1 countries this is the case, and clinker production for these countries are obtained from their Excel-format reporting files (CRFs), although New Zealand (and Hungary in recent years) exceptionally has withheld these data for reasons of confidentiality. Many other countries report time-series of clinker production in their official emissions reporting, and for some countries data are available (sometimes with monthly frequency) from official websites. Every data point in the cement production dataset has its source indicated in the accompanying source file. Blank cells should be interpreted as NODATA. Not all countries are present in the dataset.

Emissions calculation

• Emissions for all UNFCCC Annex I ("developed") countries are taken directly from their official submissions to the UNFCCC (or EIONET) in Common Reporting Format (structured Excel files), for which data are available from 1990 (slightly earlier for some Economies in Transition).
  • Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Belarus, Canada, Switzerland, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Estonia, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United States of America.
• Country-specific methods are used for Brazil, India, South Africa, Thailand, USA, Vietnam.
  • For Brazil, emissions are published from 1990, and clinker ratios are reported starting in 1970, allowing more accurate estimation before 1990.
  • Little information is available about clinker production in India since the Cement Manufacturers' Association was forced to stop collecting these data. Various sources are used to estimate how the clinker ratio has changed over time in India.
  • South Africa's reported emissions appear to be calculated assuming limestone sales statistics are cement production statistics. An alternative method is used here.
  • For Thailand, cement production and clinker trade data are available from 1990, and these are used to estimate clinker production in the period 1990-2015.
  • The US publishes clinker production data beginning in 1925, and cement production data from 1880.
  • Vietnam is a significant producer but doesn't collect or publish clinker production data. High levels of exports mean that applying a clinker ratio to cement production would be inappropriate. Here we follow Vietnam's own method of using cement production combined with clinker trade data to estimate clinker production.
• The combined_cement_data.xlsx file is used to overwrite emissions with superior data, in most cases as reported in official reporting to the UNFCCC, e.g. Biennial Update Reports, National Communications, and National Inventory Reports. Where more than one data source has been found for a country (e.g. subsequent reports), a comparison is automatically made of overlapping data, and they are combined only if they are in very close agreement (i.e., significant revisions mean that previous estimates will be ignored).
• Clinker production data have been obtained for some countries in addition to those available from Annex 1 parties' CRFs, either from reporting to the UNFCCC or directly from official agencies. The period available varies by country. Emissions for these countries are calculated directly from these clinker production data where official emissions estimates are not available.
  • Afghanistan, Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Spain, Jamaica, Japan, Moldova, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Rwanda, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Uzbekistan.
• Some countries do not report time-series of emissions, but do supply some isolated estimates in their official reporting to the UNFCCC, and these are used in some cases to constrain estimates.
• A number of countries state in their official reporting to the UNFCCC that they have never produced clinker, so emissions are set to zero for all years for these countries. In other cases, statements are made that no clinker was produced before or after a certain year, and this information is also incorporated.
  • Never produced clinker: Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, Brunei Darussalam, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Guinea, Andorra, Singapore, Réunion, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Macao.
  • Stopped or started producing clinker: Cambodia, Estonia, Fiji, Ghana, Iceland, the Netherlands (see file zero_before_after.csv).
• The information available usually covers a number of years, up to 3 decades. These are then extrapolated by combining available data and assumptions about historical developments in clinker ratios to produce longer time series of emissions based on the longer cement production dataset. More details on this method are given in the accompanying journal paper.
• For any non-Annex I countries for which time-series data of neither emissions or clinker are available, and cement production is non-zero, clinker ratios derived from the Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) cement sustainability initiative are applied to the cement production dataset to derive approximate clinker production by country, from which emissions are calculated using IPCC default factors.
• Where emissions are estimated from clinker (or apparent clinker) production data, IPCC default factors are used, with the exception of China and Argentina, for which officially reported factors are used.