Development of  low-carbon emitting technologies crucial to address climate change: WEF

New Delhi: The development and upscaling of low-carbon emitting technologies (LCETs) in the chemical industry is crucial to address climate change but are strongly affected by the political and legal environment, said the World Economic Forum.

The Forum also launched a new dashboard showing the impact of policy on low-carbon emitting technologies (LCETs) in seven jurisdictions, which include the European Union, US, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the UK which are jointly responsible for about half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The policy dashboard was introduced along with a forum white paper, Towards a Net-Zero Chemical Industry: A Global Policy Landscape for Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies.

“A complex set of policies facilitating change across value chains, in various stakeholder behaviours and in decision making will be needed to enable the broad deployment of low-carbon emitting technologies,” said Jörgen Sandström, head of energy, materials and infrastructure programme, World Economic Forum.

“Our hope is that this policy dashboard will provide support for both industry decision-making towards real-life decarbonisation projects, as well as further policy analysis for the creation of decarbonisation-promoting policies.”

The dashboard indicates that policy support for alternative hydrogen production and carbon capture and utilisation is evident in all jurisdictions covered, and biomass utilisation and waste processing receive the least support. However, the latter is likely to improve as countries move away from fossil fuels and feedstock.

The white paper, developed in collaboration with Accenture, gives an overview of the key insights and results from the policy dashboard. It highlights various promising LCETs, offering significant decarbonisation opportunities not only to the chemical sector but also to all industrial value chains.

However, WEF cautions the development and upscaling of these technologies is contingent on favourable policy environments, from monetary incentives to demand-side policies.

The white paper also shares insights on new supportive measures, such as stronger technology and infrastructure policies in the seven jurisdictions as well as funding schemes that are emerging or maturing across the globe.

The creation and stimulation of an appropriate marketplace for more sustainable produced goods appears to be the policy area with most room for improvement globally. WEF reports positive signals include the First Movers Coalition of companies, committing to harness their purchasing power and supply chains to create early markets for green products

“The policy dashboard really brings to life its unique underlying policy model, which spans seven jurisdictions, five technology areas and six policy clusters,” said Holger Vegelan, managing director, chemicals and natural resources, Accenture.

“Given the dashboard is updatable to accommodate future policy changes, I am sure it will be a helpful and sustainable source of information within this complex field of low-carbon emitting technologies.” Vegelan said.