There is an urgent need to strengthen collective action to limit global warming to levels consistent with the long-term objective of the Paris Agreement. The NEWPATHWAYS project aims to inform solutions to strengthen action by developing and analysing next-generation Paris-aligned global and national low-emission transformation pathways for the next global stocktake in 2028. The project objectives are to promote enhanced transparency, consistency, and clarity of GHG emission reduction commitments, identify opportunities to leverage equity and finance to strengthen collective climate action, and establish new national and global transformation pathways that limit temporary overshoot, rely on deep sectoral transformations, combine climate and nature protection, and are aligned with sustainable development and just transition objectives. The project will rely on a multi-level stakeholder dialogue to co-create knowledge and build user capacity to maximize relevance and uptake of its results. The NEWPATHWAYS consortium combines strong global and national pathway modelling capacity with expertise from the social sciences, economics and policy analysis. National modelling teams come from a diverse set of countries in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe covering two thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions. The robust global and diverse national modelling capabilities with simultaneous access to global and national policy debates will prove effective in providing critical information to global and national policymakers and stakeholders for strengthening climate action towards achieving the long-term objective of the Paris Agreement.

The COP21 outcome represents an important new strategic context for EU climate policy. Analysing the implications of this new context requires an interdisciplinary approach, combining analysis of the evolution of the international climate regime as well as of NDCs and their socio-economic implications. Such analysis is also urgent, given the timelines imposed by the Paris Agreement for a “facilitative dialogue” in 2018 with a view to creating the conditions for the revision of NDC in 2020. In order to address the context described above, this project has four objectives : 1) Assess the adequacy of the NDCs submitted at COP21 in light of the global temperature target of limiting warming to 2°C/1.5°C. Through the analysis of GHG scenarios and energy system scenarios , the project will pay particular attention to the concrete system changes induced by NDCs, and compare them with the changes required to meet the global temperature limit. The project will also analyse scenarios limiting warming to 1.5°C, and the impact of NDCs on other sectors. 2) Assess the implications of NDCs and deeper mitigation pathways on other European socio-economic objectives. By integrating GHG and energy system scenarios into a range of different macro-economic, global energy system models and other quantified methodologies, the project will investigate implications for European socio-economic objectives related to innovation and technology deployment; trade and competiveness; investment, financial flows and economic growth (“green growth”); and global energy markets and energy security. 3. Assess the adequacy of the outcomes of COP21, and the implications and opportunities emerging from ongoing UNFCCC negotiations. The project will undertake a social sciences-based (in particular international law and international relations) assessment of the outcome of COP21. 4) Policy recommendations for EU climate policy and climate diplomacy.

C4U is a holistic interdisciplinary project involving the collaboration with 8 European countries and Mission Innovation Countries, Canada, China and USA aimed at addressing all the essential elements required for the optimal integration of CO2 capture in the iron and steel industry as part of the CCUS chain. This spans demonstration of highly efficient CO2 capture technologies at TRL7 designed for optimal integration into an iron and steel plant and detailed consideration of the safety, environmental, societal, policy and business aspects for successful incorporation into the North Sea Port CCUS cluster. The above involves the elevation from TRL5 to TRL7 two highly energy-efficient high-temperature solid-sorbent CO2 capture technologies for decarbonising blast furnace gas and other carbon containing gases. In addition, the C4U project assesses the societal readiness and analyses the optimal design for full-scale integration of such technologies in industrial plants operated by the world’s largest iron and steel manufacturer, ArcelorMittal. For the first time, in combination, these two technologies will target up to 90% of the total emissions from the steel plant that come from a variety of sources. Using a whole system approach, we account for the impact of the quality of the captured CO2 on the safety and operation of the CO2 pipeline transportation and storage infrastructure whilst exploring utilisation opportunities based on integration into the North Sea Port CCUS industrial cluster. A candidate for the fourth Union list of Projects of Common Interest2, CO2TransPorts aims to establish the necessary infrastructure to facilitate the large-scale capture, transport and storage of CO2 from three of the most important ports in Europe; North Sea, Rotterdam and Antwerp and to transport and store up to 10 Mt/yr of CO2 per year.