The UN has produced seven “Guiding Principles for Climate-Aligned Hydrogen Deployment”

The UN has produced seven “Guiding Principles for Climate-Aligned Hydrogen Deployment” in consultation with civil society.

The principles aim to support effective public, private, and civil society stakeholder engagement on the development of hydrogen strategies, policies and business cases.

This is important as it makes the case for support only for green hydrogen in hard to decarbonise sectors. Guiding Principles for Climate-Aligned Hydrogen Deployment Toward Achieving Cost-Effective and Equitable Deep Decarbonization to Limit Temperatures to 1.5° Celsius.

The 2021 Marrakech Partnership Climate Action Pathways characterize how the energy sector must be transformed to realize net zero emissions by 2050 while limiting warming to1.5 degrees Celsius.

Hydrogen policy and investment agendas, as well as near and long-term visions, must be commensurate with 1.5C socioeconomic pathways and evaluated on the basis of their expediency in delivering climate and public health goals.

The principles call for focusing the use of near-zero carbon hydrogen where other solutions like efficiency and direct, renewable electrification are unavailable.

They also argue to pursue renewable hydrogen as the only hydrogen compatible with climate goals.

Expert partners to the UN Marrakech Partnership who participated in the consultation process included: the Energy Transitions Commission, International Energy Agency, International Renewable Energy Agency, E3G, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, International Trade Union Confederation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Stockholm Environment Institute, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and World Wildlife Fund.

Manish Bapna, President and CEO of NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) said: “Hydrogen can play a valuable role in addressing global climate change by helping us tackle the most challenging sectors of our economy. But an overeager rush into hydrogen that ignores its serious risks could turn a possible climate solution into another climate problem. We can’t let that happen. The new principles make an important contribution—they articulate critical guardrails to ensure that hydrogen deployment occurs only in a manner that is climate-safe and protects our health and communities. This is a valuable playbook to policymakers.”