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Understanding Risks in Net-Zero Pathways for Europe

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Understanding Risks in Net-Zero Pathways for Europe Feature

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The Answer to the UK’s Energy and Cost of Living Crises Clean Energy Industrial Strategy

Summary for Policymakers Analysis of Net Zero Pathways for the EU and UK

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Kelsey Paulding

EU Government Affairs Director

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Isabelle Chan

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Josh Freed

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<p>Beware of declarations that the recent European parliamentary elections offered a clear verdict on the continent’s politics. It was neither the endorsement of the far-right that many feared nor the validation of the status quo that would make governing easy for the next five years. The European People’s Party (EPP), which leads the current EU governing coalition and is the home of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, remains in power. The agenda enacted over the past five years will remain in place. The results, however, are a cautionary tale. Policymakers and NGOs must quickly adapt to a future that could prove to be even more unstable than today’s economic and political turmoil.</p>
<p>Europe did dodge the bullet of a far-right sweep of the parliamentary elections. Voters across the Nordic countries, in much of Central and Eastern Europe, and on the Iberian peninsula backed mainstream parties. The news, however, was different in Europe’s three most populous and economically powerful countries, Germany, France, and Italy. There, far-right nationalist parties continued their march into the mainstream, offering a much more complex scenario for the future of Europe and the fate of clean energy and climate policy.  </p>
<p>The EU cannot maintain the status quo of how climate policy is formulated and communicated to voters. These policies, and how they are discussed, are alienating large groups of Europeans who feel left behind and disenfranchised. This is being exacerbated by populist extremists on both ideological fringes, particularly on the far-right. The question now is whether governments, political institutions, and NGO communities that have created Europe’s climate and clean energy agenda can adapt quickly enough to reassure Europeans and rebuff the far-right where it remains strong or is growing.</p>
<h4>The Implications for the Next EU Parliament and Legislative Agenda</h4>
<p>The conclusion of the European parliamentary election is only the start of the process of determining the next EU political leadership and ruling majority.  National delegations will now enter into negotiations to form the European political groups—large groupings of cross-national political families. While these negotiations are ongoing, the center-right EPP, which has secured the largest number of seats in parliament, is expected to solidify the ongoing majority coalition with the center-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&amp;D) and classic liberal Renew Europe. The far-right nationalist ID Party, and unaffiliated nationalist parties like Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), will likely be excluded from the next government, though the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) group may align with the EPP’s majority position on some issues. This balance of power in the Parliament will also determine the political leadership in other key EU institutions, including the appointment of the next European Commission President.</p>
<p>However the next EU government emerges, we expect the EU Parliament and Commission to follow only a slightly more center-right policy agenda than the current status quo. Current European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been in office since 2019, is likely to receive a second term. This means continued implementation of the Green Deal, industrial competitiveness, and the EU climate commitments enacted since 2019 remain in place.</p>
<p>It is, however, an open question as to how much new legislation the next government can enact, especially with a potentially narrower majority. A more empowered set of far-right and nationalist parties could cause more disruption and attempt to slow policymaking down. Even here the far-right’s actions are unpredictable. These parties are fragmented. While most are aligned in opposition to migration and criticism of enacted climate action, they hold conflicting views on how to deal with Russia and China and where they fall regarding Euroscepticism. They could try to undermine Europe’s unity in support of Ukraine and the overall strengthening of the Union, but that path is far from certain. Issues like agriculture, biodiversity, and migration policy could become more tenuous, with coalition partnerships shifting based on the topic. This will lead to more tension, less predictability, and potentially more protracted negotiations over some files.</p>
<h4>National Influence of the European Election</h4>
<p>We should also look at the results of the EU elections from a Member State by Member State perspective. Contrary to many headlines, there was not a far-right wave across the continent. Results can be divided into two camps. The far-right gained or reinforced their support in Europe’s three largest countries, Germany, France, and Italy. It failed to live up to expectations almost everywhere else, notably in Spain, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden, and even Hungary.</p>
<p>The biggest takeaway from Germany, France, and Italy is the normalizing of the far-right. The AfD in Germany, the National Rally in France, and the Brothers of Italy all trace their roots to World War II-era fascist parties. Until Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni became Italian Prime Minister in October 2022, none had ever gained power.  During this election, France’s National Rally outperformed every other party, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call a snap election for June 20 and July 7. If the National Rally emerges as the strongest party in France in these snap elections, yet another major European economy falls under the influence of the far-right. At the EU level, these three national far-right parties are not fully aligned and have not yet agreed to cooperate, with Meloni and the Brothers of Italy supporting Ukraine and the European Union, while AfD and National Rally are suspiciously pro-Russia.</p>
<p>Across the rest of Europe, there were a variety of national factors that led to the underperformance of the far-right. We shouldn’t read too much into the overall results and try to find pan-European trends. However, it is interesting to note that in several countries—Poland and Hungary in particular—incumbent or recently defeated far-right parties lost ground. This is in keeping with the global anti-incumbent mood among voters.  The combination of the mainstreaming of the far-right and general anti-incumbency sentiment will only make policymaking and navigating European politics more difficult.</p>
<h4>Lessons for Policymaking and Framing</h4>
<p>The broader challenge facing policymakers, political parties, and NGOs is how to interpret these results. There is a danger in viewing it as an endorsement of the past five years’ policies and framing of issues. Persistent voter discontent, a growing anti-incumbent backlash, and the mainstreaming of far-right nationalist parties point to systemic risk. The pace and the volume of legislation cannot continue in the next five years. Nor can it be oriented or framed around issues that many European voters feel are out of touch with, or negatively impact, their daily lives. The new EU leadership, and NGOs that support them, must be explicit about how the Green Deal’s implementation will help improve the lives of everyday Europeans, support industry and agriculture in the EU, and reduce costs.</p>
<p>Reframing the actions the EU has taken over the past five years, justifiably, around improving the continent’s security and competitiveness is an important start to addressing Europeans’ concerns. The next step is to use these policies to enable each Member State to take the actions that will accelerate decarbonization, and address the economic and security issues front and center in their citizens’ minds. If these policies, however, limit or are cast by the populist Right as limiting Europeans’ choices or increasing their costs in the name of “climate action,” the chance of creating an even greater backlash is significant.</p>
<h4>Conclusion</h4>
<p>It is still too early to form firm conclusions on the full impact of the EU elections, and the results were too varied to apply generalizations to the entire Union. Moving forward, members of the climate and energy community must acknowledge that a change of approach is needed in the new mandate to ensure the durability of the net-zero transition. Continuing to engage in technical support for policy implementation and highlighting the need for Transatlantic cooperation on these, ultimately global, issues is important. It is even more critical now to acknowledge and address voter discontent, which is also being exploited by the far-right. There is an opportunity here to build on some of the synergies across US and EU audiences to engage citizens who feel uneasy with the changes occurring, or more insecure because of the cost of living and security crises, and incorporate their concerns in building a broader vision for climate action that is centered around competitiveness, energy security, transatlantic cooperation, and democracy.</p>

EU Election: Short-Term Relief, but Long-Term Threat from the Far Right

<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>After a summer of crippling energy prices and energy company bankruptcies, the United Kingdom is entering a fall and winter of more privation and a mounting cost-of-living crisis. Global supply chains are extremely strained by the Covid pandemic and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Gas and oil imports are unreliable. Authoritarian leaders like Putin and Xi are looking to exploit instability, further deepening the challenges experienced in the West. Today, the UK is poorer, less stable, and less secure because of these dynamics.</p>
<p>The goal of net-zero emissions did not cause or contribute to these crises, but it is a key solution. To accomplish this, the UK should consider borrowing a page from the United States and implement a true clean energy industrial strategy. In many ways, the UK is already well-positioned to be ahead of the US on this. For example, the UK has the Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy Department. It also has set and met ambitious clean energy goals and has the potential to produce an enormous amount of clean electricity, heat, and hydrogen with offshore wind and nuclear power. With the right national policies, this shift could also spur a reindustrial revolution. That’s because the emerging <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/executive-summary/when-america-leads-competing-for-the-future-of-clean-energy-executive-summary">global clean energy market is expected to be worth well over £2 trillion annually</a>. A clean energy industrial strategy could provide the UK with affordable, secure energy, reduce its vulnerability to spikes in international oil or gas prices, and become a net-energy exporter.</p>
<h2>Why Industrial Strategy?</h2>
<p>The United States just enacted $500 billion clean energy industrial strategy investments within historic legislation (the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, and Infrastructure Law) that will cut emissions by one gigaton in a decade. It did so by making a bet that only government policy could move the economy and private sector to embrace clean energy at scale; and the only way to do this required restoring US manufacturing, addressing the supply chain crisis, and making energy both carbon-free and cheap. Atlantic columnist Robinson Meyer summarized the strategy best by describing it as, “For America to decarbonize, it must reindustrialize.”</p>
<h2>Economic Opportunity</h2>
<p>Industrial strategy is useful because the world is moving to clean energy. The <a href="https://www.iea.org/news/record-clean-energy-spending-is-set-to-help-global-energy-investment-grow-by-8-in-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">International Energy Agency estimates</a> that there will be more than £1.2 trillion in clean energy investments in 2022, with investment growing by 12% since 2020, up from 2% in 2015. The UK could win a large share of this expanding market. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cop26-uk-government-launches-call-to-action-for-exporters-to-go-green" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to the UK Export Finance</a>, clean trade could deliver up to £170 billion of export sales in goods and services for the UK by 2030. That doesn’t include opportunities in many of the rapidly emerging clean technology sectors. New <a href="https://www.thirdway.org/executive-summary/when-america-leads-competing-for-the-future-of-clean-energy-executive-summary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Third Way Analysis</a> of clean energy market potential led by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates that by 2050, segments from key industries that support six clean technologies it initially studied will have a market of <strong>£2 trillion a year.<sup>1</sup></strong></p>
<p>Even without looking beyond its borders, the UK must build a tremendous amount of new clean electricity to meet growing demand, replace aging gas boilers, and abate rising costs. Cutting-edge modelling conducted by <a href="http://www.carbonfreeeurope.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carbon-Free Europe</a> finds that the UK could do this in a way that generates enough electricity to match growing electricity demand with domestic clean energy and become a net-exporter. By our model’s estimates, UK electricity demand will increase by approximately 240% compared to current demand. This will result in the UK seeing the second largest reduction in consumer gas demand in Europe and the third largest drop in consumer oil demand. It will also require an extensive build out of nuclear power and a 3.5x increase in the pace of renewables deployment.</p>
<p>While the climate goals are important broadly, the economic benefits for the UK are most striking. If the UK sets this as a national target, backed by a strategy where the government partnered with the private sector to make investments and incentivize clean energy, it would spur significant reindustrialisation and set the UK up to become:</p>
<ul>
<li>An essential exporter of electricity and hydrogen to mainland Europe.</li>
<li>The second largest constructor of new transmission, strengthening ties with France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands and exporting large amounts of energy to serve German loads via Denmark and the Netherlands. </li>
<li>The leading builder of nuclear power and offshore wind in Europe (more than any EU country) – and a top energy producer and exporter of low-carbon hydrogen.</li>
<li>A leading nation in carbon management, storing the fourth largest amount of captured carbon and helping reduce emissions from heavy industries like cement production.</li>
<li>The sixth largest producer of biofuels to replace fossil fuels, primarily in aviation and chemical manufacturing.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Components of a UK Clean Energy Industrial Strategy</h2>
<p>A UK clean energy industrial strategy would deploy national government policy to incent and remove regulatory obstacles for the private sector to act rapidly to decarbonise and create clean energy, build it domestically, and create jobs. This is the only way to get the scale of investment and clean energy infrastructure that is needed and reduce energy costs to earn broad public support and reach net-zero emissions. Specific outcomes could include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Scaling up investment in clean energy infrastructure to ensure the UK becomes a net energy exporter based on low-carbon energy by 2040</li>
<li>Training a transitioning energy workforce to fill the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/28/uk-must-create-120000-green-energy-jobs-by-2030-to-meet-targets-national-grid">120,000</a> clean energy jobs Britain will need by 2030</li>
<li>Investing in an array of clean energy technologies to meet demand in the residential heat, transport, electricity, and industrial sectors and for export to Europe</li>
<li>Planning for reduced energy supplies from the continent and petrol-dictatorships</li>
<li>Increasing efficiency standards to save money for British households and businesses</li>
<li>Partnering with the US and other allies to create democratic-lead clean energy driven alternative to the Belt and Road pushed by Xi or Russia’s petro-blackmail</li>
</ul>
<h2>The National Vision</h2>
<p>While there is clearly a range of legislative and policy changes that can be made to achieve these aims, immediate priorities could include:</p>
<ul class="boldList">
<li>
<strong>Create a comprehensive roadmap: </strong>The government should conduct a clean energy competitiveness study to identify the best opportunities for the country to invent, manufacture, produce, and export clean fuels, power, and products, and which domestic or international companies are in the best position to lead in the UK. It should also include which parts of the value chains in electricity generation and storage, industrial efficiency and manufacturing, carbon removal and management, transportation, and building operations it  has the highest competitive advantage.</li>
<li>
<strong>Make smart investments in the UK supply chain: </strong>Based on the comprehensive roadmap, the government should significantly expand its Supply Chain Plans. This would go beyond renewables to cover every technology in the industrial clean energy economy, like advanced nuclear and carbon management. It would identify which specific parts of the clean energy supply chain are of strategic or economic interest and should be domestic. It would also provide targeted investments and other access to inexpensive capital to companies that will build out these parts of the supply chain.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Give British households a break</h3>
<ul class="boldList">
<li>
<strong>Insulate the UK:</strong> The Government should provide a mixture of grant funding and incentives to ensure a rapid increase in domestic insulation standards. This will cost £8 billion annually up to 2050 but will produce rapid benefits in terms of reduced (imported) fossil fuel use. At 2016 prices, this would save around £6 billion per year. Given the current elevated prices, savings may reach £18 billion a year.</li>
<li>
<strong>Make home heating cheap and clean:</strong> In conjunction with making British homes more energy efficient thanks to better insulation, the government should stimulate domestic market demand and production of heat pumps and subsidise their installation for residential use. This would save households up to £1,410 annually in lower heating bills and cost less than £2.5 billion over thirty years, with the goal of ensuring that by 2030 home heat pumps are less expensive than gas-fired boilers to install and operate.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Go all in on domestic clean energy</h3>
<ul class="boldList">
<li>
<strong>Scale domestic electricity generation: </strong>The enormity of the energy challenge should not be underestimated. <a href="http://www.carbonfreeeurope.org/">Carbon-Free Europe’s modelling</a> shows that, by 2050, the UK’s electricity capacity will need to be more than three times the current level. This challenge is even greater given that all of the UK’s current wind capacity and all but one of the nuclear plants will need to be re-provided by 2050. The current gas and coal plants will also need to be replaced with low carbon generation.</li>
<li>
<strong>Use every clean technology to generate electricity and heat: </strong>The government should adopt a technology-neutral UK Green taxonomy that allows investment funds to finance all low-carbon developments under it, including renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture. <a href="http://www.carbonfreeeurope.org/">Carbon-Free Europe’s modelling</a> shows that this would require £770 billion in total public and private investment in key technologies over the next thirty years. This includes electricity generation and storage, clean fuels, direct air capture, and heat pumps.</li>
<li>
<strong>Develop advanced nuclear: </strong>The UK should accelerate the development and deployment of advanced nuclear for electricity and industrial heat. Public-private partnerships should be made with leading developers to deploy first-of-a-kind reactors, rapidly expand commercialisation, and to support deployment with UK-based fuel fabrication. This will increase energy reliability and replace existing reactors and natural gas assets that will be retired in the 2030s. It would also create greater flexibility in the electricity grid, lower network costs, and add new heat usages, for example, for hydrogen production. Across all forms of nuclear technology, £352 billion of investment will be required up to 2050.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>The United Kingdom led the world into the industrial revolution in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, and can lead the world in the affordable, clean energy revolution of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. But the UK needs to act now. Too many people are suffering from high energy prices, which threaten to cripple the economy and stall the immense progress made toward decarbonisation. Investing £770 billion now and over the next three decades, while simultaneously partnering more closely with the United States will finally allow the UK to build the kind of cheap, reliable, clean energy infrastructure every modern nation must have to survive, thrive, and remain independent.</p>
<p>The UK must take the path of inventing, producing, and exporting the clean energy that will power the 21<sup>st</sup> century. By working together, the government and industry can create jobs, revive industry, and reduce Britain’s vulnerability to horrific energy price spikes—while simultaneously setting the pace for meeting ambitious emissions reduction goals.<a href="#_ednref1" name="_edn1"></a></p>

The Answer to the UK’s Energy and Cost of Living Crises? Clean Energy Industrial Strategy

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EU Election: Short-Term Relief, but Long-Term Threat from the Far Right

The Answer to the UK’s Energy and Cost of Living Crises? Clean Energy Industrial Strategy

Understanding Risks in Net-Zero Pathways for Europe

Summary for Policymakers: Analysis of Net-Zero Pathways for the EU and UK