Terms
Terms
Terminology
Building blocks are the economic sectors, such as energy, transport or industry, and cross-cutting areas, such as finance, innovation, and lifestyles, in which transformation is needed to achieve a climate neutral society by 2050, and across which ECNO tracks progress.
Building block assessment
Acceleration factor
Or the ‘required change in speed’ is the ratio of the required change versus the past change on a given indicator. This results in the example formulation: ‘We need to increase our annual emission reductions to at least 4.9 Mt CO2e per year – or 2.6 times faster than the 1.9 MtCO2e per year achieved in the past’.
Benchmarks
Future reference points against which progress for each indicator is compared. ECNO derives benchmarks from official EU sources, such as directives, regulations, strategies, and action plans, including their related impact assessments. Benchmarks often come in the form of quantified policy goals or targets.
Climate neutrality
Stands for the objective of achieving net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This means that emissions are brought down as close to zero as possible, with remaining, difficult to abate emissions balanced by GHG removals within a given country or region.
Enablers
The supporting conditions and underlying changes needed to meet the objectives in a given building block. They are the opposite of barriers or inhibitors.
Historical data
Includes, but is not limited to, statistics from Member States harmonised and provided by Eurostat or the European Environment Agency (EEA) as well as from international organisations such as the OECD, FAO, or World Bank.
Indicators
Track the historical development and status of enablers and objectives based on quantitative data. An assessment of indicator progress compares the trend against the required development to meet a future reference point, where data and relevant benchmarks are available.
Objectives
Describe what needs to be achieved in each building block to reach climate neutrality.
Required change
The change that underlies a pathway that meets the identified benchmark or target. Where benchmarks are missing, the required change indicates a direction and speed of change.
Trend
The development of an indicator over time based on historical data. ECNO’s trendline is a straight, best-fit line that smooths out the variation in historical developments based on all data points, providing a sense of the general progress over time.
Industry
Industry is an indispensable element of the EU economy. However, the sector is facing complex decarbonisation challenges requiring a shift in the mix of energy and applied feedstocks, partly deep modifications to technological processes and efforts in terms of circular economy.
OVERVIEW:
Progress on industry has been far too slow
The transformation of industry aimed at making the sector compatible with climate neutrality has been progressing far too slow. The reduction of industrial GHG emissions should occur about 2.7 times faster, and requires structural changes to processes across the sector. The share of clean energy carriers used in industry was mostly stagnant in the last five years, although the tendency is positive in the longer run. There are currently no clear signs of a potential acceleration of transition in this sector. The enabling conditions circularity and energy efficiency also experience either lacklustre growth or regress, while availability of clean energies and infrastructure cannot be measured for now due to insufficient monitoring frameworks, itself linked to an early phase of deployment of some of these solutions.
INSIGHT TWO
Industry decarbonisation not well monitored
There are many aspects of industry decarbonisation which are not covered by systematic monitoring frameworks, which limits the potential of policymakers to make knowledge-based decisions in this area.
OBJECTIVES
Objectives describe what needs to be achieved in each building block to reach climate neutrality.
Objective 1
Progressing towards net-zero industrial GHG emissions
EU industrial emissions have been gradually decreasing in the period of 2016-2021; however, the rate of change must be 2.7 times faster than what is currently observed in order to meet the emissions targets implied by the Climate Target Plan. Both elements of the aggregate (process use and energy use emissions, respectively ca. 43% and 57% of the total) followed similar pattern of historical changes.
GHG emissions from industry
This indicator shows past development in net-zero industrial GHG emissions in comparison to the EU target of reaching industrial emissions levels of 23.1 MtCO2e by 2050.
The data show an annual decrease of 1.3% between 2016 and 2021. To meet the target, the required annual change between 2021 and 2050 needs to be 2.7 times faster than the current rate of progress.
The indicator measures total GHG emissions from industry and includes:
a) emissions from processes and product use (IPCC cat. 2),
b) emissions from energy use (IPCC cat. 1.A.2).
Objective 2
Enhancing clean energy carriers in industry
The indicator measuring share of clean energy carriers in energy and feedstock use is limited in its scope, so that it takes into account only electricity, renewables and biofuels instead of the full spectrum of clean energy carriers, i.e. also green hydrogen. In years 2016-2021 average annual rate of change was equivalent to the decrease of 0.1%, so the changes in the indicator values have to reverse direction to be compatible with climate neutrality.
Share of clean energy carriers in energy and feedstock use
This indicator shows past development in the share of clean energy carriers in energy and feedstock use.
The data show an annual decrease of 0.1% between 2016 and 2021. This development was heading in the wrong direction.
This is the sum of clean energy carriers for energy and feedstock use compared to the total energy carrier use.
ENABLERS
Enablers are the supporting conditions and underlying changes needed to meet the objectives in a given building block. They are the opposite of barriers or inhibitors.
Enabler 1
Availability of clean energies and infrastructure
Annual production of renewable hydrogen for industrial use
For now, there is no EU-wide aggregated data on the annual production of renewable hydrogen for industrial use.
The indicator measures the amount of renewable hydrogen produced annually in the EU.
CO2 injection capacity
For now, there is no EU-wide aggregated data on CO2 injection capacity.
The indicator measures the annual operational CO2 injection capacity.
Enabler 2
Circular economy
Circular material use rate
This indicator shows past development in the circular material use rate in comparison to the EU target of doubling the circular material use rate in 2030 from 2020 levels.
The data show an annual increase of 0.4% between 2016 and 2021. To meet the target, the required annual change between 2021 and 2030 needs to be 24 times faster than the current rate of progress.
The indicator measures the percentage share of material recycled and fed back into the economy in overall material use.
Resource productivity
This indicator shows past development in resource productivity.
The data show an annual increase of 2.0% between 2016 and 2021. This development was heading in the right direction, but should accelerate in the future.
The indicator is defined as GDP divided by domestic material consumption, which is defined as the annual quantity of raw materials extracted from the domestic territory of the local economy, plus all physical imports minus all physical exports.
Enabler 3
Energy efficient industrial processes
Final energy consumption in industry
This indicator shows past development in final energy consumption in industry.
The data show an annual decrease of 0.1% between 2016 and 2021. This development was far too slow and should massively accelerate in the future.
Final energy consumption covers deliveries of commodities to consumers in industry sector for activities that are not fuel conversion or transformation activities.
Energy intensity of output
This indicator shows past development in the energy intensity of output.
The data show an annual decrease of 0.6% between 2016 and 2021. This development was heading in the right direction but should massively accelerate in the future.
The indicator is defined as the amount of energy used to produce a given level of output in industry.
report
State of EU progress to climate neutrality
The assessment of progress towards climate neutrality shows that the EU is moving in the right direction, but the pace is too slow. The transition to climate neutrality is essential for ensuring a liveable future.
Read Now
