Ref. Ares(2020)3951431 - 27/07/2020
What Europe needs to do
As our industry stays engaged in these shorter-term efforts, we firmly believe that national
Governments and the European institutions must prepare a coordinated exit strategy, a
comprehensive recovery plan and an unprecedented investment plan.
While the crisis is first and foremost human, the economic consequences loom large and raise several
questions around Europe’s future strategic industrial capacity. Without industrial activity in Europe,
there will not be any future economic recovery and growth.
At the same time, efforts are being pursued to increase the GHG emission reduction ambitions of the
Union. In order to deliver economic recovery and greater GHG emission reductions public and private
sector efforts should now become more focused on scale and costs.
IOGP therefore believes that public support should concentrate on industrial-scale carbon
management projects. Indeed, only industry can deliver the scale of projects required to reach the EU
climate goals while, as a priority, maintaining existing jobs and stimulating the creation of new ones.
Given the long investment cycles, these measures need to come along with long term visibility and
investment security.
In this context, and as recently confirmed by the IEA, investments in large-scale industrial carbon
management technologies, such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen, will play an
important role to meet the European Green Deal objectives.
We therefore urge the European
Commission to include these large-scale investments in its recovery plan.
What technologies for a sustainable recovery
The establishment of the Clean Hydrogen Alliance, announced by the Commission’s Industrial
Strategy, is a critical and decisive matter and IOGP stands ready to join. This Alliance should
encompass all clean hydrogen production technologies if it is to be successful. The production of
hydrogen from natural gas with CCS or methane pyrolysis is a large-scale solution to the
decarbonisation required for industry, maritime and heavy land transport and district heating.
Our members have developed many of the techniques integral to CCS/CCU and are investing in future
CCS projects together with other industries in a cluster-based approach, where emissions will be
captured from multiple industrial sources and then stored safely underground. Moreover, hydrogen
produced through natural gas reforming or methane pyrolysis could, in anticipation of significant and
affordable volumes of renewable based clean hydrogen, effectively facilitate the decarbonisation of
the gas system and of the connected sectors, validly supporting the growth of sector coupling.
Several industries do not have other realistic low carbon alternatives for the near and mid-term and
could with an economic recession risk closures and major job losses.
Public and Private
Partnerships (PPPs) in CCS and hydrogen technologies will provide a solid contribution to
both a growth strategy as outlined in the Green Deal and a just transition.
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Electronically signed on 27/07/2020 12:52 (UTC+02) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563
