The European green hydrogen strategy risks increasing CO2 emissions globally

Abstract

The EU comission has proposed a target of 20Mt of green hydrogen use per year in the EU, half of it being imported, the other half produced domestically. It also proposes additionality rules which should ensure that green hydrogen is low-carbon. We show here that this rules are ineffective in potential export regions, increasing CO2 emissions there. Furthermore, CO2 emission reductions in the EU are likely low, due to the European Emission Trading Scheme. In total, this implies that the hydrogen targets can increase global CO2 emissions quite significantly. We therefore propose an adaptation of the rules for green hydrogen production.