The EU’s research & innovation programme can power a cleantech revolution

In a challenging geo-political context, Europe has a window of opportunity to lead on both climate action and industrial competitiveness. As Mario Draghi highlighted in his report last year, this can only happen if decarbonisation ambitions are backed by real investment – and there is an urgent need to boost those investment. The European Commission followed suit and pledged to be an “Investment Commission,” while reaffirming its commitment to implement the 2030 emission reduction targets and to stay to course on the longer-term targets.

With the second edition of our State of Europe’s Climate Investment report, we take stock of the development in investments supporting the climate transition in the EU27. The report assesses the real-economy annual investments needed to meet the 2030 targets set out in the Green Deal and Net Zero Industry Act for the energy, buildings, transport and clean tech manufacturing sectors. We track the actual investments in those sectors in the EU economy, highlight the deficits and analyse challenges to mobilise investments.

With Member States meeting this week to discuss the progress and future of EU R&I funding at the Competitiveness Council a group of civil society, research and cleantech organisations, including I4CE, have today issued an open letter urging EU policymakers to put clean technology research and innovation (R&I) at the centre of the bloc’s long-term […]