Blogpost from COP25 side event: What about Stuff? Policy Frameworks to Decarbonize the Materials Industry

COP25 Side event: What about Stuff? Policy Frameworks to Decarbonize the Materials Industry, Spanish Pavilion, IFEMA Madrid

Photo: John Nyberg from FreeImages

During COP25 the Climate Friendly Materials Platform (CFM) hosted an event on innovative policy instruments to transform the basic material sector to net climate neutrality.

Among the speakers were Heleen de Coninck who outlined the science behind the 1.5-degree target. Heleen is Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 4 in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C. Her presentation reinforced the crucial importance of the basic material sector’s reaching net climate neutrality by 2050. This is required in order to get on to an emission pathway that restricts dangerous global warming to well below 2 degrees.

Karsten Neuhoff, from DIW Berlin, followed with a comprehensive presentation of the key insights from the recently published report, Building Blocks for a Climate Neutral European Industrial Sector, which examines policy solutions to transform the basic materials sectors to carbon neutrality by 2050. Cassandra Pillay, Climate Change Expert from UNIDO, shared her perspective on the role of international cooperation in industrial energy efficiency and decarbonization, and Åsa Ekdahl, Head of Environment and Climate Change at World Steel Association, shared her insights on the role of policy in providing incentives for the low carbon transformation of the steel industry.

The audience consisted of a mixed group of stakeholders with different perspectives, and during the discussion session a wide range of interesting issues were addressed, including:

• Boarder Carbon Adjustments and the potential advantages of alternative instruments such at the inclusion of a consumption charge in the EU ETS.

• The role of Life Cycle Assessment in the policy framework

• How finance can be effective at delivering transformative innovation

• The role of Green Public Procurement in creation of lead markets

• The potential for the implementation of key product standards

• The urgent need for large scale pilot demonstrator projects

The event was chaired by Julie-Anne Hogbin from Climate Strategies, the Climate Friendly Materials (CFM) and opened by Pedro Linares from the Comillas Instituto de Investigación Tecnológica.

Background

The Climate Friendly Materials (CFM) platform brings together leading research groups from across Europe to enhance analytical capacity on a coherent policy package to transform European heavy industry.

This event, like other activities of the Climate Friendly Materials Platform, builds on and relates to a number of works recently conducted or ongoing in Mistra Carbon Exit, for example: an ongoing research project at DIW Berlin on Green Public Procurement, a workshop held in Stockholm in May 2019 on "Policy Design for Greening Construction Supply Chains" and a joint report on how EU trade and climate policy can mutually support each other to provide incentives for low-carbon investments while addressing carbon leakage concerns.