The EU and China play a vital role in achieving global climate neutrality due to their high GHG emissions, economic power, influence on international trade, and strong competitive position in low-carbon technology industries. Yet, both regions face tremendous challenges in how to achieve their climate targets.
EU-CHINA BRIDGE aims to support the transition to a climate-neutral and resilient society in both Europe and China by jointly advancing knowledge on technology innovations and roadmaps for decarbonising energy intensive industries, co-creating innovative modelling by combining cutting-edge bottom-up and integrated assessment modelling to quantify net-zero sustainable pathways, and developing the most updated and comprehensive emissions data.
The project developed open-source EU–China joint technology inventories for promising net-zero options in the iron and steel and chemical sectors. It also supported the implementation of demonstration activities in China and co-created scale-up pathways for selected emerging technologies. In parallel, emission inventories and point-source datasets for the iron and steel and chemical industries were produced.
A state-of-the-art modelling framework was substantially advanced, building on both cutting-edge and established tools in the EU and China. It integrated detailed representations of technologies and policies and captured complex economy–energy–land–climate interactions. These upgraded modelling capacities laid the foundation for developing net-zero pathways for the EU and China in the next phase of the project.
Co-creation processes with stakeholders form a central pillar of EU–China BRIDGE. They foster a shared understanding of the challenges at stake, support the development of a common vision for industrial transformation, and help translate that vision into concrete, actionable steps. Three cycles of co-creation are taking place, contributing to the assessment of scaling-up pathways for specific technology options, the development of technology roadmaps for steel decarbonisation and chemical defossilisation, and the formulation of net-zero emission sectoral pathways.
In addition, qualitative analyses identify the transformation challenges and opportunities facing the steel and chemical industries in both the EU and China and map the policies shaping transformation. The insights generated will feed into the development of quantitative technology roadmaps and net-zero emissions pathways.
