Policy Dispatch: The FORESIGHT podcast on the policies underpinning the energy transition

Gas heating is not an affordable heating option anymore. Instead, the demand and uptake of heat pumps in Europe’s building stock have seen a major surge in the past few months. Global heat pump sales rose 15% in 2021. In Germany alone, demand rose by 25% in the first half of 2022 year-on-year. And in Finland, by as much as 80% year-on-year. Heat pumps bring multiple benefits. So much so the Europe...

The European Green Deal must put consumers at the heart of its policies. The European Commission has put strong emphasis in the social dimension of its energy and climate policies, and the energy price crisis has made it more evident that our most vulnerable consumers must not be left behind. But even when Brussels and EU capitals have some exciting ideas to democratise and make clean energy affor...

The European Commission’s climate chief Frans Timmermans said before leaving to COP27 that the EU’s emissions reduction target “can be increased to 57%”. This news came as EU legislators concluded the revisions of two key pieces of the EU’s climate legislation, the Effort Sharing Regulation and the LULUCF Regulation. Why are these two pieces of legislation so relevant and what is the state of play...

Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) are, in essence, the opposite of carbon emissions: their goal is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, ideally permanently. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sees an increasing role of removals in reaching net zero and limiting global warming. However, the concept of CDR is often misunderstood and confused with other storage and usage methods. To di...

Aviation has shortened distances across continents and connected people and cities all around the globe. However, it has also made our planet warmer. With a carbon footprint comparable to that of several countries – as well as a significant non-CO2 environmental impact – cleaning up aviation will be crucial to achieving our climate goals. In this episode, we dive deep into the outlook for ‘green’...

Sky-high energy prices have threatened to bankrupt households and businesses alike, prompting governments and the European Union to dig into their pockets and design new energy and economic policies meant to quell the crisis. There is a lot of uncharted territory to cover. Governments have never had to replace energy supplies at such short notice and so comprehensively before. The EU has never had...

As the United Nations’ COP 27 in Egypt approaches, Africa’s energy and climate transition is in the spotlight. The African continent has an opportunity to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Its main hurdle, however, is the need for cheap resources and access to financing to achieve its decarbonisation, and the need to incentivise participation from local companies and investors in its energy m...

Buildings are a crucial piece in the jigsaw of the energy transition, one that is often overlooked. The EU’s building stock is responsible for as much as 40% of the bloc’s energy consumption, and for 36% of its greenhouse gas emissions. The EU is updating its rules on energy performance of buildings at a critical time, since Russia’s war on Ukraine is putting EU’s gas supply at risk. In the first...

Listen to the trailer for the new podcast Policy Dispatch from FORESIGHT Climate & Energy, delving into the key policy and regulation that underpins the global energy transition. From FORESIGHT Climate & Energy, Policy Dispatch is a podcast all about the policies that underpin the energy transition. This is what will make or break the global decarbonisation effort. Through biweekly, short-but-swee...