A Resource-Bound Critical Analysis of the Decarbonisation Roadmaps for the UK Foundation Industries by 2050

The foundation industries in the UK were responsible for emitting 42 Mt CO2eq in 2020, which is approximately 10% of the yearly territorial greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government decarbonisation roadmap issued in 2015 predicted that high-tech strategies such as carbon capture and utilisation, hydrogen and biofuels, as well as electrification of processes are key for achieving the climate mitigating targets by 2050. In this study, a critical assessment was performed on the limitations to achieve these high-tech strategies such as biomass availability, capital investment, and technology readiness. The study is the first to use the UK carbon budget values as the resource limit for the high-tech decarbonisation strategies. The findings show that the significant uncertainty associated with the high-tech scenarios limits their decarbonisation potential by 2050. More importantly, to stay within the mid-century carbon budget for the foundation industries, 20–40% reduction in production, through circular economic strategies such as material efficiency and/or changes in product specifications, is required in order to achieve the decarbonisation targets.