Barriers to Industrial Decarbonisation

The report identifies that while decarbonisation opportunities exist, they are hindered by a low EU ETS carbon price, restrictive product benchmarks, and a lack of shared infrastructure. Stakeholders argue that the current ETS design encourages incremental improvements over breakthrough technologies and often penalises early adopters or those using low-carbon substitutes. Proposed solutions include updating benchmarks with recent data, expanding green public procurement, and integrating carbon pricing with trade policy to ensure global competitiveness.

• The current EU ETS carbon price is considered too low and unstable to incentivise the high capital investment required for breakthrough decarbonisation technologies, leading to a weak investment climate for CO2 abatement.
• EU ETS product benchmarks can discourage the use of low-carbon substitutes; for example, iron ore pellets—a lower-carbon alternative to sinter in steelmaking—have been treated under different benchmarks, creating competitive distortions that favour more polluting technologies.
• The design of the ETS may penalise 'first movers' because sectors that achieved greater emissions reductions between 2007-2008 and 2016-2017 will likely face faster required reduction rates in the future.
• Industrial decarbonisation is hindered by a lack of shared infrastructure for hydrogen, CO2 transport and storage, and low-carbon electricity, with stakeholders expecting national governments to provide these.
• Outdated or overly prescriptive technical norms and product standards act as barriers to the market entry of low-carbon innovations, particularly in the cement and concrete sectors.
• Current EU climate policies fail to account for product lifecycle emissions or the value of manufacturing by-products, which limits incentives for material circularity and value-chain decarbonisation.

APA

Ember (2018). Barriers to Industrial Decarbonisation. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Sandbag_barriers-to-industrial-decarbonisation_-2018.pdf

Chicago

Ember. Barriers to Industrial Decarbonisation. 2018. https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Sandbag_barriers-to-industrial-decarbonisation_-2018.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Ember |title=Barriers to Industrial Decarbonisation |date=May 2018 |url=https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Sandbag_barriers-to-industrial-decarbonisation_-2018.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ember2018barriers, author = {{Ember}}, title = {{Barriers to Industrial Decarbonisation}}, institution = {Ember}, year = {2018}, month = may, url = {https://ember-energy.org/app/uploads/2020/03/Sandbag_barriers-to-industrial-decarbonisation_-2018.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }