This report presents the outcomes of the Geopolitical Industrial Decarbonisation Scenarios workshop, convened on behalf of the Eye of Europe Horizon Europe project by the Insight Foresight Institute. Bringing together 30 participants from across the European Union—including policymakers at EU, national, and regional levels, industry leaders, energy and climate specialists, and foresight and forecasting experts—the workshop explored how the EU can navigate mounting geopolitical uncertainty while accelerating industrial decarbonization on a 2050 horizon.

The discussion was structured around two core aims. First, participants examined a suite of forward-looking geopolitical scenarios, assessing how divergent power dynamics, energy trade patterns, and technological trajectories could either hinder or catalyse the transition to a net-zero industrial base in the EU countries. Particular attention was paid to supply-chain resilience, strategic autonomy in critical materials, and the interplay between carbon border adjustments and global climate diplomacy. Second, the workshop sought to surface emergent research and innovation (R&I) needs and opportunities that would equip EU actors to thrive across the scenarios. Priorities highlighted include advanced electrification processes for hard-to-abate sectors, low-carbon hydrogen and synthetic-fuel value chains, circular-economy business models, and data-driven tools for real-time decarbonisation monitoring.

Outputs from the session feed directly into the Eye of Europe project’s multi-workshop learning cycle. Immediate products comprise this extended report for attendees; aggregated insights captured in the public Pilot Logbook Part I – What we did and Part II – What we learned; and distilled policy recommendations to be released in the Eye of Europe Policy Brief: Foresight Perspectives on Key R&I Topics. Beyond documentation, the Insight Foresight Institute will leverage the findings to stimulate agenda-setting dialogues with EU bodies and industrial stakeholders, ensuring that identified R&I pathways inform Horizon Europe programming and other EU-level funding instruments. Workshop materials and presentations are retrievable via the futures4europe.eu knowledge-sharing portal, reinforcing the project’s commitment to an open foresight community.

As part of ‘the Eye of Europe’ Horizon Europe Project, Insight Foresight Institute organised an in-person stakeholder workshop on ‘Geopolitical & industrial decarbonisation scenarios to identify R&I opportunities for the EU’ on 10-11 April 2025 in Madrid, Spain. This workshop gathered experts specialised in different areas related to circular economy, decarbonisation, sustainability, innovation, geopolitics etc. 

The workshop consisted of debating around a primary issue on the EU’s agenda: how to navigate geopolitical issues to keep decarbonising the continent towards sustainable and competitive sectors. 

For that matter, strategic alliances, resistant supply chains, and proactive management in global trade and diplomacy were needed. Several issues were identified, clustered in four themes:
- Geopolitical and Regional Alliances (relation with the EU)
- Industrial Competitiveness
- Energy Security and Supply
- Supply Chains (Raw Materials)
- Supply Chains (Manufacturing)

Participants were invited to attend this two day workshops starting with introductory presentations. Once participants were put into context, the common scenario work began. An interactive session was held in the plenary and then in small groups. The second day, the key visions shared the day before were gathered and an introduction was made to roadmapping on R&I needs and emerging areas. Roadmapping on specific themes for emerging R&I were discussed in small groups. The findings were shared in the plenary.

Date: 10 & 11/04/2025
Location: Calle Orense, 34, Madrid, Spain
Format: In-person
Participants: Experts on industrial decarbonisation, geopolitics, circular economy, sustainability, R&I, technology, European Union etc.

For more information, please contact totti.konnola@if-institute.org

The Futures Wheel is a form of structured brainstorming that helps participants visualize the impact of trends or emerging signals.
Registration is closed

In this workshop, we will use the method Futures Wheel to explore the following futures topics:

• Smart Spaces
• Climate Change
• Global Commons
• Social Confrontation
• Criminal and Lawful Activities
• Transhumanist Revolution
• General AI
• Alternative Energy Sources

The participants can decide between different breakout rooms to discuss the impacts of the topics on the near and far future.

Purpose of the method
The Futures Wheel is a form of structured brainstorming that helps participants visualize how and to what extent trends or events might impact the organization, society or strategy area in question. It is particularly useful for identifying and mapping connections and causalities. It also helps us think far into the future as it is a very flexible, yet powerful tool.

Read more: https://millennium-project.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/06-Futures-Wheel.pdf

Green Hydrogen offers a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, changing the world of energy supply completely – geopolitically (some countries depend on their own Renewable Energy sources for their energy supply and not on other countries) and in terms of market structure (no more dependence on a small number of all-powerful oil, carbon and gas companies). Despite today’s inefficiencies in converting energy from nature to Hydrogen and back to power, Hydrogen could be a versatile energy carrier and a central element for energy storage in more abundant but more volatile renewable energy systems. Hydrogen needs to be produced, stored, and transported. Scientific and political discourses range from “hydrogen technology will provide us with the abundance of energy” to “building up hydrogen infrastructure including the necessary renewable energy sources is inefficient and will not lead to any kind of abundance.” For sure is that a fundamental change toward hydrogen as an energy carrier will have deep consequences for consumption and production patterns, global trade, and the reconfiguration of infrastructures.

***

Climate change and the limitations – physically and politically/economically - of fossil fuels foster the need to decarbonise and change to alternative energy production, storage, and carrier systems. Technology in renewable energy improves, and in general, energy efficiency is increasing, but currently, absolute demand for power is increasing.

The technology to form Hydrogen is improving, and more units are built. Also, catalyst technology is advancing. One must expect strong opposition from current stakeholders in fossil and nuclear technology. Although, there is also the option to use nuclear power to form Hydrogen, which many people see as critical. Investments in the infrastructure are high. While mixing Hydrogen with methane for heating is almost feasible today with minor adaptations to the gas pipelines, building up an entire parallel infrastructure for handling pure Hydrogen safely is a massive adaptation in infrastructure. It remains unclear how a transition can be managed and financed and if access to critical raw materials is given. Before hydrogen technology could enter the market in full force, the low efficiency in converting power to Hydrogen power needs to be improved or compensated.

Renewable energy production and catalyst technologies require rare earth metals, precious metals, and large amounts of copper, aluminium, and even sand for construction. Most of these raw materials cannot be found within the EU. How to secure access to these raw materials when there is a race for these resources? In addition, the EU has only limited potential for renewable energy production. Harvesting consequently, e.g., solar energy potentials, would transform the infrastructure significantly. One challenge might be that there could be a mismatch between the availability of solar or wind energy and water. Conflict regarding the use of water is likely in these areas. The electrolysis of water in massive quantities will also put pressure on the water system, which climate change impacts can worsen. In general, water might be scarce when there is more abundance of renewable resources.Any burning (also Hydrogen) under ambient air will lead to the formation of nitrogen oxide, which is a significant cause of air pollution (PM, acidification and eutrophication, precursor for ozone).

This autumn, experts are developing alternative climate scenarios as part of a foresight project that helps prepare the 2nd Strategic Plan 2024-2027 of the Horizon Europe Framework Programme for R&I. The project is conducted by the “Foresight on Demand” Consortium on behalf of the European Commission, DG RTD. In a Deep Dive area “Climate change and R&I: from social change to geoengineering”, Prof. Benjamin Sovacool, together with the other members of the expert team, are developing, among others, this 'technological fix' scenario.

Get involved, comment on the scenario and relate the scenario to recent developments!   

Since hydrogen energy, in particular green hydrogen, is increasingly regarded as an important energy carrier in the EU's transition strategies towards a carbon-neutral future, questions concerning both the shape and size of a hydrogen economy need to be asked now. Green hydrogen, it is assumed, can play a significant role in the de-carbonization of high-energy-intensive industries and (some means of) transport as it can both deliver and store a tremendous amount of energy. For hydrogen energy to be sustainable - in other words, for it to be "green" - it must be produced from renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar. However, since at least in some EU countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, the potential of renewable energy production is limited in the sense that it won't be able to meet projected green hydrogen demands, policymakers are increasingly looking to establish international partnerships to produce green hydrogen outside the EU and import it for national use - with a particular focus on countries in the Global South. 

What could a European energy system that includes hydrogen look like in 2040 in the context of different global, political, economic and social constellations in and around the continent?

The answer is probably, a classic: "it depends". Hydrogen is the smallest and lightest molecule in the world. It is about eight times lighter than methane. There's a lot of methane leakage around the world. And by "a lot", I really mean a lot. Satellite imagery by the European Space Agency collected data that proves there is significantly more leakage in the atmosphere than official estimates. And methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere (Source: Environmental Defense Fund - EDF). Some of this methane leakage is due to sheer industry negligence (oil and gas companies have been proven to do routine gas flaring), but also to bad casings, old pipes, and all sorts of infrastructure mishaps that are bound to happen in any industry. Now imagine how much easier is for hydrogen - a much lighter molecule than methane - to escape and leak, particularly when we blend it with natural gas in existing pipelines, as is the case in the plans of many countries in Europe - including Romania, my home country.  

Between 16th - 19th of July, Eye of Europe consortium partners AIT and Fraunhofer ISI attended the 2024 conference by the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) and the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).

Results for the working group Energy are available at: http://foresight.cnr.it/working-groups/wg-energy.html 

The chemical industry is a significant contributor to the EU’s economy. It is simultaneously instrumental to the green and digital transition and exposed to its effects. A steady supply of (green) chemicals is required to deploy renewable energy generators, insulate Europe’s building stock and create reusable and recyclable consumer goods. On the other hand, chemical synthesis is an energy-intensive process inherently dependent on carbon-based feedstock (currently derived almost exclusively from fossil fuels). In addition, chemistry is a global industry with international value chains, where the EU both collaborates and competes with other countries for materials, knowledge and skills. Transforming the European chemical industry into a sustainable motor for the green and digital transition will require investments in infrastructure, assets and skills. Focus should be placed on chemicals that are crucial to this Twin Transition, Europe’s resilience, or both. The long lead time required for the deployment of infrastructure and the development of skills means that such investments must be made now to achieve targets set for 2050. In connection with these issues, the report at hand aims to give insights into a number of value chains that are strategic to EU economy. It considers which chemicals and innovations are vital to transforming these value chains as well as rendering them more resilient and future-fit. To this end, a participatory workshop-based foresight approach was implemented to provide a unique set of insights from stakeholders and translate them into actions and policy recommendations.

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) conducted a series of Horizon Scanning exercises across six EIC programme managers’ (PM) portfolios as part of an ongoing collaborative effort to strengthen EIC strategic intelligence capacity through the use and development of anticipatory approaches. The fields covered include: Space Systems & Technologies; Quantum Technologies; Agriculture & Food; Solar Fuels & Chemicals; Responsible Electronics and Architecture, Engineering & Construction.

The main findings of this Horizon Scanning – the identification and analysis of ‘signals’ from nascent research, technologies, or trends on the periphery of the mainstream – show opportunities for investment in emerging technologies and breakthrough innovations that can advance EU competitiveness while also serving to support the EU’s long-term policy and societal visions.
Other insights were taken from this exercise, namely the identification of drivers, enablers and barriers to technology development and adoption, that could be the starting ground of further foresight exercises and policy initiatives.

The report highlights three main themes – sustainability, energy, and scalability, which are overarching across signals, drivers, enablers and barriers. And concludes with a series of recommendations to streamline Horizon Scanning activities in the specific context and needs of the EIC.