In recent years, major economies have developed extensive climate policy packages to decarbonise heavy industries. These policies provide a strong domestic signal for a clean industry transition.

Throughout the formulation of these policy packages, it is natural that each country will pursue its best interests and leverage its political opportunities to deliver benefits for its workers and citizens. Yet, recent events have indicated a competitive race that is, at times, combative, for a sector that is critical to national interests, high-emitting, and trade-sensitive.

This trend risks greater fragmentation, zero-sum outcomes, and long-term disconnects between each region’s climate strategies, undermining global climate progress. Without conscious efforts to explore potential areas of alignment, we run the risk of falling into a ‘race to the bottom’ and missing the opportunity for accelerated industrial decarbonization nationally and globally.

Ideally, a balance should be struck, where each nation’s independent effort would also aim to maximize the potential for our evolving policy frameworks and markets to become more interoperable, self-reinforcing, and more likely to deliver local benefits while solving the global climate crisis.

The Race to the Top project provides an opportunity for both sides of the Atlantic to collaboratively shape the debate on policy options and support a global race to the top for climate. The EU-US relationship currently has great potential to pilot the development of a more cooperative agenda on industrial decarbonisation.

Through a research exercise, ‘Race to the Top’ seeks to provide actionable knowledge on industrial decarbonisation policy and form a basis for EU-US stakeholder dialogue. The project explores ideas ranging from immediately actionable to long-term and aspirational – recognizing that current politics are volatile on both sides of the Atlantic, competition is intense, and policy designs must consider systems impacts among a variety of diverse policy frameworks.

The project integrates a co-creative research process, whereby stakeholders will get to actively engage at different stages of the report’s preparation. Throughout its timeline, Race to the Top will maximize the synergies between analytical work and stakeholder engagement, in order to ensure relevant and comprehensive policy recommendations.

This project is carried out in collaboration with the Reform Institute. It is made possible through the funding and support of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Reform Institute is the Polish independent think tank that supports the continuous improvement of formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies in Poland, Europe and globally.

Final Report:

Race to the Top for Climate: Building a cooperative agenda for a globally inter-operable EU-US clean economy transition

This project report and its accompanying summary explores how to enhance US-EU collaboration on industrial decarbonisation for hard-to-abate sectors. The study finds that current efforts might benefit from sidelining the reconciliation of contentious issues, such as carbon pricing. Instead, a “softer” path to alignment could be pursued. This path would prioritise cooperation on short-term “carrots” (such as the push and pull for industrial cleantech) and long-term “sticks” (such as the harmonisation of standards that could form a basis for carbon requirements). It could also expand the scope of cooperation from technologies already within the purview of transatlantic initiatives – such as hydrogen, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) – to include more systemic shifts, such as circular economy solutions and electrification.

Read the report

Read the summary

Race to the Top for Climate: Transatlantic Cooperation for a Globally Inter-operable Industrial Transition

This event presented the findings of the project’s final report, which provides an exhaustive stocktake of current and expected gaps and opportunities for EU-US engagement in industrial decarbonisation. This work aims to inform future engagement between EU and US decision-makers and stakeholders, and to help identify the most productive avenues for transatlantic cooperation towards a clean economy transition. For more information, visit the ‘publications’ tab.