Julio Friedmann, Columnist

To Tackle Climate Change, the (Industrial) Heat Is On

Making concrete, steel and glass requires lots of heat — and lots of greenhouse gases. The U.S. needs an agenda to decarbonize heavy industry.

Time for an update.

Photographer: Takamasa Inamura/Hulton Archive
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Climate change has become big news recently — and rightly so. Scientists have delivered important reports about its urgent dangers, political leaders have made pledges to fight it, and youth climate activists have marched in the streets and marked our consciences. This is all for the good. New ideas about electric vehicles, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and adaptation will enrich the conversation about climate action.

But one critical topic has received short shrift: industrial heat.