On Wednesday this week (20 October), mining major Rio Tinto unveiled its new, ambitious climate targets that include spending $7.5bn on curbing its emissions, with the intention of halving its CO2 emissions in the next decade.
Under Rio’s new push, it will be looking to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 direct emissions by 50% by 2030 – a figure that is more than triple its previous goal. The group has also set the target of reducing emissions by 15% by 2025, five years ahead of its previous target.
“Rio Tinto is taking action to strengthen our business and improve our performance by unleashing the full potential of our people and assets, working in partnership with a broad range of stakeholders,” said Rio Tinto Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm in the statement.
“All our commodities are vital for the energy transition and continue to benefit from ongoing urbanisation. We have a clear pathway to decarbonise our business and are actively developing technologies that will enable our customers and our customers’ customers to decarbonise. We are able to do this, while continuing to provide attractive returns to our shareholders in line with our policy, because we have a strong balance sheet and world-class assets that deliver strong free cash flows through the cycle.”
The miner has also pledged to double its expenditure on promoting and expanding commodities integral to a cleaner economy, such as cobalt, with spending anticipated to rise to $3bn per year from 2023. Increased investment into developing decarbonising technologies will also be part of the group’s bid to cut back on emissions.
The group has also said it has an emissions-free smelting solution in the pipeline that may be expected to reach commercialisation by 2024. The new method – known as ELYSIS – has been developed with support from Apple and the Canadian Government and will be used to make carbon-free aluminium and steel.
Source:
https://www.riotinto.com/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-to-strengthen-performance-decarbonise-and-grow
