On 1 February 2023, the European Commission published the Green Deal Industrial Plan to provide a framework for the transformation of EU industry for the net-zero age. The Plan aims to enhance and protect European industrial competitiveness and manufacturing capacity throughout its transition to climate neutrality. The Plan relies on the strengths of the EU internal market and is based on the idea that a green transition can strengthen competitiveness.
CLC welcomes the Commission’s Green Deal Industrial Plan; the communication is timely and necessary. This decade will be decisive to limit the rise in global temperatures, and we highlight the need to accelerate steps towards net zero. Strengthening our own industrial location and attractiveness for low carbon investments, keeping a level playing field for EU member states and avoiding a zero-sum game with other economic areas in the world is important.
We agree that actions are needed within all four pillars presented in the Plan. There is a need for a predictable and simplified regulatory environment for both low carbon investment and production capacity of products that are key to meeting our climate neutrality goals, such as batteries, windmills, heat pumps, solar, electrolysers, and carbon capture and storage technologies.The scope of the plan should also cover technologies that provide a big positive climate impact through energy saving and process efficiency should be in scope. Regulation should set the direction, not choose the winning technologies.
European companies need fast access to sufficient funding to scale up investments that are aligned with the European net-zero target. Priority in funding should be given to innovating and scaling up new technologies with positive climate impact, rather than distorting a well-functioning energy system market with oversized subsidies. To support Europe’s competitiveness, any subsidy race between Member States should be avoided. Large-scale upskilling and re-skilling efforts are also needed to enable and take full advantage of the low carbon transition.
Lastly, open trade for resilient supply chains is crucial. The Commission needs to protect the Single Market from unfair trade in the cleantech sector.
More information: Tuuli Kaskinen, CEO, Climate Leadership Coalition, tuuli.kaskinen@clc.fi, +358 50 5149752 and Juha Turkki, Development Director, Climate Leadership Coalition, juha.turkki@clc.fi, +358 45 3461925
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