Concrete Still a Barrier to Climate-Friendly Infrastructure Plan

President Joe Biden’s goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 doesn’t square with his plan to rebuild the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges, unless he rethinks the main ingredient in virtually every major infrastructure project in U.S. history: concrete.

Concrete is responsible for at least 7% of climate-change-fueling carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, according to clean energy research group BloombergNEF. Other groups, such as the Yale School of the Environment, put that estimate even higher, at 8%.

While cleaner “green concrete” is being used in states—including some that are dangling tax credits for builders to adopt the new materials—the White ...