In the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations around the world agreed that rapid decarbonisation is needed to prevent the dangerous impacts of climate change. Then in 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report Global Warming of 1.5°C showed that the need to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rapidly is even more urgent than previously thought (IPCC, 2018a). The report concluded that the window of opportunity is closing fast for meaningful action to limit the planet’s increase in temperature and to counter the global climate crisis. Therefore, policy makers must increase their efforts to reduce or eliminate emissions in all economic activities. Options that would deliver only partial emission reductions are not sufficient.

The full decarbonisation of some industry and transport subsectors is technically and economically challenging, and the current number of solutions is limited. These are known as “hardtoabate” sectors. There is, however, a common solution for some of these hard-to-abate sectors: hydrogen produced with renewable energy, also known as green hydrogen. Green hydrogen can be used as a feedstock for the production of chemicals and fuels or directly as a fuel.