The growing push to cut carbon emissions from cement

Here's an increasingly hot word in global warming circles: cement.

Driving the news: BP and Cemex, the Mexico-based multinational materials company, are jointly working on ways to cut emissions from cement transport and production.

• A "memorandum of understanding" yesterday is just the latest of several recent industry developments with the same goal.

Why it matters: Cement is a major industrial source of carbon emissions, accounting for roughly 7% of the global total. And cutting emissions from heavy industries like cement will be very important for deeply decarbonizing the global economy.

What's next: BP and Cemex said they'll work on areas like low-carbon power, efficiency, carbon offsets, and CO2 capture, utilization and storage tech."Additionally, they intend to work together to develop urbanization solutions envisioned to decarbonize cities," the announcement states.

Catch up fast: Here's some more recent news on the cement front...

• Last week, the Ireland-based "green cement" company Ecocem Materials announced $27 million in finance from the Bill Gates-led Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
• Two weeks ago, Solidia Technologies, a firm with tech that absorbs CO2 in the concrete curing process, announced it raised another $78 million. It counts BP, Breakthrough, John Doerr and others among its backers.
• And in mid-April, the nonprofit XPRIZE awarded a combined $15 million to a pair of companies — CarbonCure and UCLA CarbonBuilt — that have technologies to decarbonize concrete. CarbonCure's also backed by Amazon, Breakthrough and Microsoft. GreenBiz has more.