The third edition of the Net-Zero Industry Tracker provides a detailed analysis of the progress hard-to-abate industrial and transport sectors are making worldwide in their efforts to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The eight sectors covered in the report account for approximately 40% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are considered sectors in which reducing emissions can be challenging. Moreover, they play a fundamental role in driving global economic activity and connectivity. As a result, finding solutions to reducing these industries' emissions is critical to achieving global net-zero goals, while ensuring economic prosperity. The tracker provides both quantitative and qualitative scorecards for the sectors to continuously track their progress towards, and readiness for, net-zero targets. Furthermore, it identifies priority areas and key barriers for the industries to encourage targeted actions to facilitate progress towards emission reduction.

Governments and firms around the world are racing to define their place in the clean energy economy, which is growing quickly as policy makers develop new industrial strategies that also bolster energy security and address climate change. This Energy Technology Perspectives Special Report is structured to provide decision makers with an analytical toolkit to design and evaluate their strategies for clean technology manufacturing. Acknowledging that there is no “one size fits all” approach, it lays out guiding principles that can help inform future planning.

What is the Green Deal Industrial Plan? What are critical raw materials, and why do they matter? What is the EU doing about critical raw materials? Where is the EU currently standing on clean tech?

In this second instalment of the Topic of the Month, we analyse the three legislative initiatives foreseen by the Green Industrial Plan and anchored in the EU Green Deal: the Net-Zero Industry Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act and the electricity market design reform.