16 November 2019 | New Scientist | 5ON ONE side of the world, fires have
turned Australia’s skies black and
menaced the country’s largest city,
Sydney (see page 7). On the other, floods
in England have killed a woman and
triggered emergency evacuations.
While UK prime minister Boris
Johnson said severe flooding was
“almost certainly” happening more
often because of climate change,
Australian prime minister Scott
Morrison refused to answer questions
on global warming. Despite increasing
calls from citizens for action, political
will on climate change is still uneven.
One bright spot came last week,
when New Zealand became the latest
country to pass a law to reduce carbon
emissions to net zero by 2050. Such
goals are vital, not just because they are
what the science demands for us to avoidcatastrophic warming, but also because
they draw into focus the need to clean
up every sector of an economy, not
just the obvious stuff like energy.
That includes one of the dirtiest and
most invisible: heavy industry. Concrete
and steel are fundamental to the modernworld and our hunger for them is set
to grow dramatically in coming decades,
but they are on a par with the US for
their contribution to climate change.
It is little wonder why. We use huge
amounts of these materials, and the
chemical processes for making them
are very carbon intensive. With the steelindustry in a downturn, there is little
economic incentive to spend money
on carbon-cutting projects.
Yet there are glimmers of hope (see
page 38). Pilot projects are under way to
reduce emissions from these processes
by capturing carbon or cutting the
use of these materials, or, in the case of
steel, looking at alternative production
methods involving hydrogen. Steel-
maker Liberty House last month
pledged to become carbon neutral by
2030, mainly through using furnaces
that can be powered without fossil fuels.
While we work out those hard
fixes, we need to crack on with the easy
stuff: ramping up renewable energy,
electrifying transport and ending energy
waste in our buildings. It mustn’t take
more fires and floods to generate the
political will to make this happen. ❚The hard stuff
Tackling emissions from heavy industry is key to fixing climate change
The leader
“Despite increasing calls
from citizens for action,
political will on climate
change is still uneven”EDITORIAL
Chief executive Nina Wright
Finance director Jenni Prince
Chief technology officer Chris Corderoy
Marketing director Jo Adams
Human resources Shirley Spencer
HR coordinator Serena Robinson
Facilities manager Ricci Welch
Executive assistant Lorraine Lodge
Receptionist Alice Catling
Non-exec chair Bernard Gray
Senior non-exec director Louise RogersMANAGEMENTCONTACT US
newscientist.com/contact
General & media enquiries
US Tel +1 617 283 3213
210 Broadway #201, Cambridge, MA 02139
UK Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1200
25 Bedford Street, London WC2E 9ES
Australia 418A Elizabeth St, Surry Hills, NSW 2010
US Newsstand
Tel +1 973 909 5819
Distributed by Time Inc. Retail, a division of Meredith
Corporation, 6 Upper Pond Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054
Syndication
Tribune Content Agency
Tel 1-800-346-8798 Email [email protected]
Subscriptions
newscientist.com/subscribe
Tel 1 888 822 3242
Email [email protected]
Post New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield MO 63006-PUBLISHING & COMMERCIAL
Display advertising
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1291 Email [email protected]
Commercial director Chris Martin
Display sales manager Justin Viljoen
Lynne Garcia, Bethany Stuart, Henry Vowden,
(ANZ) Richard Holliman
Recruitment advertising
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1204 Email [email protected]
Nicola Cubeddu, Viren Vadgama,
(US) Jeanne Shapiro
New Scientist Live
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1245 Email [email protected]
Events director Adrian Newton
Creative director Valerie Jamieson
Event manager Henry Gomm
Sales director Jacqui McCarron
Exhibition sales manager Rosie Bolam
Marketing manager Katie Cappella
Events team support manager Rose Garton
Marketing executive Jessica Lazenby-Murphy
Marketing
Head of campaign marketing James Nicholson
Poppy Lepora
Head of customer experience Emma Robinson
Head of data analytics Tom Tiner
Web development
Maria Moreno Garrido, Tom McQuillan, Amardeep Sian© 2019 New Scientist Ltd, England. New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is
published weekly except for the last week in December by New Scientist Ltd,
England. New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387. New Scientist Limited,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and other mailing offices
Postmaster: Send address changes to New Scientist, PO Box 3806,
Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA.
Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in USA by
Fry Communications Inc, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055Editor Emily Wilson
Executive editor Richard Webb
Creative director Craig Mackie
News
News editor Penny Sarchet
Editors Jacob Aron, Timothy Revell
Reporters (UK) Jessica Hamzelou, Michael Le Page,
Donna Lu, Adam Vaughan, Clare Wilson
(US) Leah Crane, Chelsea Whyte
(Aus) Alice Klein, Ruby Prosser Scully
Interns Gege Li, Layal Liverpool, Jason Arunn Murugesu
Digital
Digital editor Conrad Quilty-Harper
Web team Lilian Anekwe, Anne Marie Conlon,
David Stock, Sam Wong
Features
Head of features Catherine de Lange (parental leave)
and Rowan Hooper
Acting head of features Tiffany O’Callaghan
Editors Gilead Amit, Julia Brown,
Kate Douglas, Alison George, Joshua Howgego
Feature writers Daniel Cossins, Graham Lawton
Culture and Community
Editors Liz Else, Mike Holderness, Simon Ings
Subeditors
Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons
Bethan Ackerley, Tom Campbell, Chris Simms, Jon White
Design
Art editor Kathryn Brazier
Joe Hetzel, Dave Johnston, Ryan Wills
Picture desk
Picture editor Susan Banton
Production
Production manager Alan Blagrove
Robin Burton, Melanie Green