Given its limited supply, green hydrogen must be reserved for hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as aviation and shipping, rather than directed towards sectors that can be electrified, writes Aoife O’Leary.

Aoife O’Leary is the Founder and CEO of Opportunity Green, a climate NGO, and the Skies and Seas Hydrogen-fuels Accelerator (SASHA) Coalition.

Green hydrogen is being overlooked when it comes to the European Commission’s Taxonomy system. A recent legal challenge to the Taxonomy’s criteria on shipping and aviation highlights how the new rules could lead to investment in planes or ships running on fossil fuels. 

Incentivising fossil-fuel funding in this way fails to promote investment in truly green solutions – namely green hydrogen – and ultimately contributes to global pollution for decades to come.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) downgrading its capacity growth forecasts for green hydrogen in Europe recently is yet another reinforcement of the point that there is not currently sufficient policy to support investment in hydrogen for those sectors that need it.

Until that is rectified, we will continually be behind on hydrogen deployment, and ultimately delaying the transition to net zero, economy wide.