Comment in 2022

Comprehensive and meaningful inclusion of marginalized communities within the research enterprise will be critical to ensuring an equitable, technology-informed, clean energy transition. We provide five key action items for government agencies and philanthropic institutions to operationalize the commitment to an equitable energy transition.

Ammonia has been proposed as a shipping fuel, yet potential adverse side-effects are poorly understood. We argue that if nitrogen releases from ammonia are not tightly controlled, the scale of the demands of maritime transport are such that the global nitrogen cycle could be substantially altered.

A pro-health fuels and stoves agenda based on the World Health Organization standards can realign lagging progress toward meeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7’s call for universal energy and clean cooking access by 2030, combat the household energy crisis, and promote health and social justice.

Mission Innovation seeks to accelerate deployment of clean energy and make it affordable, attractive and accessible to all. Fully succeeding in these aims will require greater attention to the needs and context of developing countries, concerted focus on capacity building, and increased emphasis on energy access and justice.

In its next phase, Mission Innovation plans to further develop multinational collaborations that include a variety of entities. This may require new governance structures to shield the new collaborations from increasingly protectionist domestic politics while incorporating renewed concerns about climate change and energy security.

In September, ministers will gather in Pittsburgh to consider how their governments should respond to the energy and climate innovation imperative. Building on Glasgow, the meeting should strive to fill critical gaps in areas such as capital-intensive demonstration projects and innovation-friendly trade in carbon-intensive goods.

Heat pumps are widely recognized as a key clean energy technology in the energy transition. While the global heat pump market has expanded significantly, more than doubling in some countries in a single year, expanded policy support will be needed to build confidence in the technology and meet climate goals.

Hard to decarbonize homes represent a complex problem that has historically been neglected in favour of the lower hanging fruit of easier to treat properties. To enable an equitable net zero transition, we must understand these homes in a holistic manner take into account the impacts of different routes to decarbonization on occupants.

Critics have opposed clean energy public investment by claiming that governments must not pick winners, green subsidies enable rent-seeking behaviour, and failed companies means failed policy. These arguments are problematic and should not determine the direction of energy investment policies.

The European Union’s plan to phase out Russian natural gas imports by 2027 rests partly on increasing near-term imports of US liquefied natural gas. This will require a coordinated policy response that includes securing supplies from major exporters, global diplomacy, expanding import capacity, and alignment with Europe’s climate goals.

The Russia–Ukraine crisis has exposed vulnerabilities in US energy security. The US may import only a small amount of Russian oil but it is tied to Russian energy via its participation in highly globalized supply chains.

Innovative user-centred energy business models will be critical to deliver millions of zero-carbon assets in homes and businesses and to help customers with complex energy prices. These new business models require regulatory space to emerge while regulation itself will need to change to protect consumers from harm.