London, 26 February 2025: The EU today announced its Clean Industrial Deal to set the EU on a path to global competitiveness in tandem with decarbonisation. The report set hopeful set the right tone for boosting green hydrogen e-fuels that are key to decarbonising shipping and aviation and are to date under-developed value chains. However more detail is needed to ensure the measures get green hydrogen solutions to the right use cases, and are industry funded.

Aurelia Leeuw, Director of EU Policy at the SASHA Coalition and Opportunity Green, said:

“The Clean Industrial Deal has the makings of a robust blueprint for getting the EU shipping and aviation clean and competitive, most promisingly by boosting green hydrogen e-fuels. A key part of this is the focus on cheap energy, the bedrock of industrialisation and instrumental to the green transition, provided cost reductions do not take precedence over decarbonisation.

De-risking green hydrogen is a much-needed intervention and the Commission’s text is clear on ensuring hydrogen does not end up where alternatives like electrification are available. What is missing is the certainty that these financial support mechanisms to help decarbonise aviation and shipping will be paid for by the industry itself.”

Green hydrogen is crucial for decarbonising hard-to-electrify sectors, but since it is expensive and an inefficient energy vector, it should only be used in sectors where there are no other alternatives, including shipping and aviation. Such solutions should be financed by the sectors themselves, since both shipping and aviation are historically, and still today, under-taxed, and they should pay fairly for their own climate impacts.

The Clean Industrial Deal also raised concerns about biofuels. The SASHA Coalition’s Fuelling Nature report shows that the EU will scupper its biodiversity goals if it aims to meet shipping and aviation climate targets using biofuels. Aurelia commented,

“The announced Bioeconomy Strategy is cause for concern, as it leaves the door open to biofuels. Biofuels cut fewer emissions than e-fuels, endanger biodiversity, jeopardise energy and food security, and are at risk of fraud. Their use would only undercut aviation and maritime e-fuel producers. Not clean, and certainly not competitive.

All eyes now on the Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (STIP): this is the EU's chance to carve out a competitive advantage in clean aviation and shipping , and maximise the opportunity offered by the burgeoning e-fuel industry, all while accelerating towards net zero."

The SASHA Coalition published its Clean Industrial Deal position paper outlining four policies to accelerate shipping and aviation’s green transition. These included entrenching climate targets, extending the EU ETS, creating a market for Zero Emission Flights (ZEF), and using the STIP to implement financial mechanisms to support e-fuel producers.

ENDS