Publications

This week, the EU launched the policy package that will define its new mandate – the Clean Industrial Deal. Pitched as “a transformational business plan” linking Europe’s climate and competitiveness goals, the Deal is Europe’s answer to the alarm raised by the Draghi report last year.

Translating innovation into world-leading industries is critical, and FP10, the EU’s next flagship R&D funding programme after Horizon Europe concludes, offers a chance to bridge this gap. The Green Deal era saw Europe embrace 'Cleantech 2.0', with record investments and new projects. Yet 2024 has brought a reckoning. Slowing demand in sectors like heat pumps and electric cars, Chinese industrial overcapacity, and attractive subsidies in the US and Canada have left European cleantech struggling to compete. Closures, layoffs, and stalled projects - including the high-profile collapse of Swedish battery maker Northvolt - have shaken the sector. The EU’s Net Zero Industry Act and the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal aim to support cleantech manufacturing, but catching up isn’t enough. To lead globally, the EU must focus on the next wave, including new battery chemistries and next-gen renewables - 'Cleantech 3.0.'

As we return from the summer break, we begin this new European Union mandate with a sharp sense of urgency. Mario Draghi’s report on European competitiveness has sounded the alarm – the EU’s economic health is deteriorating, and immediate intervention is needed to prevent a ‘slow agony.’ Indeed, the EU suffers from a range of critical conditions – challenges which the newly-announced College of Commissioners-elect, will need to speak to in the Hearings to come. A fragmented Single Market is restricting growth, international competition weakens key industries, and decarbonisation efforts are lagging, as highlighted by the European Climate Neutrality Observatory. These issues demand a swift response. 

The EU’s Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) is an important boost towards unlocking future cleantech public finance. In this blog, Ciarán Humphreys argues that Member States should get behind a European solution.

Climate change and ecological planning are taking centre stage in this autumn’s budgetary measures. The public finance programming act, which has yet to be discussed with the Senate, now requires the government to set out a multi-year funding strategy for planning. The finance bill for 2024, which will go through Parliament soon, earmarks an additional €7 billion in transition support for households, businesses and local authorities. This €7 billion does not, however, resolve the issue of financing the climate transition, and in this post we provide an overview of the key climate debates that will take place, or ought to take place according to I4CE, during this veritable marathon budget.

Psychologists sometimes talk about the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. One year on from the announcement of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the European response has looked startlingly similar. Public anger in Brussels at perceived American protectionism. Private sector depression at the prospect of Europe falling behind in the global cleantech race. Denial of the gap between the EU and US efforts, by arguing that that all EU and national spending on cleantech amounts to a conservative estimate of what the IRA offers (while not factoring in the full range of US support). 

How much should France invest in climate action ? Experts from diverse backgrounds have sought to answer this important and seemingly simple question. They agree that France needs to invest more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. But they differ on the scale of public and private funding needs, which range from €20 to €100 billion a year. Is this a cause for concern? Not really, because the experts are not counting the same thing. These differences can be explained and should not be used as an excuse for inaction.

The “abatement cost” has emerged as a key tool to steer the decarbonisation of the economy, to reduce its cost, and to assess the efficiency of a technology, an investment or a public policy. This tool nevertheless has numerous limitations, and must therefore be used with caution. Find out more in this I4CE interview with Stéphane Hallegatte, Senior Climate Change Advisor at the World Bank, who has published several academic articles on this subject.

The industrial sector currently accounts for around 20% of French greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The IPCC scenarios are constantly cited when we are interested in climate and its evolution, but sometimes wrongly, and often without a clear understanding of what they imply. On the occasion of the release of the latest IPCC report, in which five new scenarios have appeared, Charlotte Vailles of  I4CE explains how they were constructed and what information is available about them. 

2 billion euros: this is the amount that the French government will bet on hydrogen until 2022 as part of its recovery plan. An amount that will increase to reach 5.7 billion by 2030. I4CE invited researchers Jean-Pierre Ponssard from Polytechnique/CNRS and Guy Meunier from INRAE, both members of the Energy & Prosperity Chair, to analyze France's "hydrogen plan".

The world is confronted with a health crisis that has caused a global social and economic shock – and in the short term we must be focused on responding to this disaster. Nevertheless, it is also important to start preparing now for the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid a deep and lasting economic recession. Around the world, international, national and local stakeholders are starting to draw up recovery plans. Many recognize that actions that contribute to climate goals can be an effective part of improving both the economy and the resilience of our society. We thus have an opportunity to accelerate investments that will be both pro-recovery, as well as contribute to the fight against climate change. However, this will require that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, as explains I4CE’s Quentin Perrier, who draws parallels from the post-2008 financial crisis recovery plan.