Low-carbon hydrogen is considered the missing link of the energy transition, especially in hard-to-abate industrial sectors, storage and sustainable mobility, and a key component of EU's plans for both post-COVID recovery programs and decoupling from Russian hydrocarbons. Germany is the member State deploying a more active hydrogen diplomacy to secure H2 imports to accelerate its H2 transition and replacing grey H2 with low-carbon H2. The article assesses the feasibility of Germany's H2 transition by 2030 in a context of high uncertainty by evaluating four alternative H2 import policy pathways: a market pathway focused on minimising costs, a geoeconomic pathway prioritising EU producers and neighbours (nearshoring), a geopolitical pathway aimed at securing imports from allies (friendshoring), and a sustainable pathway focusing on green hydrogen and renewables (greenshoring). The article proposes an innovative modelling design that assesses Germany's H2 transition by integrating stochastic simulations and combinatorial optimisation to project realistic trade scenarios with (or despite) high levels of uncertainty. It tries to complement the existing techno-economic literature on low-carbon hydrogen trade with a beyond-cost approach. The results shed light on the supply implications of the different policy dimensions included in Germany's H2 import strategy. Unexpectedly, prioritising the environmental and climate dimension through greenshoring would attain similar results in covering German import demand as a pure market approach, and both scenarios obtain better results than prioritising proximity and geopolitics.

This article analyses the impact of the European Green Deal (EGD) on the EU’s claim to climate leadership, the extent to which this affects cooperation between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and how the EDG could help enable the net-zero transition. The EGD restates the EU’s quest for climate leadership which has heretofore been prominently ideational and exemplary (directional). However, the EGD’s implementation is expected to have a significant impact on partner countries. Both conflict and cooperation could arise amid shifting geopolitical alliances and insufficient climate action. Building on the literature on the EU’s climate and EGD diplomacy, expert analyses, closed-door working groups and elite interviews, this article contends there is scope for the EU to transcend directional climate leadership and deepen entrepreneurial (coalition-led) and structural leadership, both through coercion and assistance, and makes the case for expanding cooperation with Latin America. The main conclusions are: (1) for the EU to retain its climate leadership it needs an overarching green deal diplomacy strategy that helps LAC countries adapt to the European decarbonisation strategy; (2) Enhanced entrepreneurial (diplomatic) and structural leadership (through assistance) can result from strengthening climate governance in areas such as climate laws, scientific advisory boards, citizens participation and policy instruments including taxonomies and emission trading systems; (3) structural leadership through assistance could also be strengthened by ramping up climate finance (e.g. via a revised Global Gateway), furthering climate-proof trade agreements and supporting just transition initiatives.

La crisis energética europea ha transformado las relaciones transatlánticas al incrementar sustancialmente las importaciones europeas de gas y petróleo estadounidense y desarrollar la cooperación en materia de sanciones a Rusia. Estados Unidos se ha convertido en garante de la seguridad energética europea, sustituyendo a Rusia como suministrador de gas y petróleo y evitando el desabastecimiento de ambos mercados europeos. La cooperación en materia de sanciones se explica por la actitud constructiva de la Administración Biden, en contraste con el unilateralismo de su predecesor, permitiendo una respuesta transatlántica coordinada y progresiva. Pese a la existencia de fricciones en torno a la política industrial y climática desarrollada a ambos lados del Atlántico, el nuevo papel de suministrador clave de gas y petróleo adquirido por Estados Unidos y la cooperación sobre sanciones han permitido reducir las tensiones surgidas inicialmente en torno al Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), y en menor medida, el Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). El artículo analiza en qué medida el nuevo patrón de interdependencia energética transatlántico y la cooperación en las sanciones a Rusia reconfiguran la relación transatlántica y si refuerzan la autonomía estratégica europea. Se concluye que la refuerzan, pero que intensifican la tradicional asimetría de la relación y aumentan la exposición de la UE a una política exterior estadounidense menos proclive a la cooperación y/o más sesgada hacia un modelo energético introvertido.

The European energy crisis has transformed the transatlantic relationship by substantially increasing European imports of US oil and gas and developing cooperation on sanctions against Russia. The US has become a key contributor to European energy security, replacing Russia as a supplier of oil and gas and preventing shortages in the European market. Cooperation on sanctions is explained by the constructive attitude of the Biden administration, in contrast to the unilateralism of its predecessor, allowing for a coordinated and gradual transatlantic response. Despite frictions over industrial and climate policy on both sides of the Atlantic, the new role of the US as a key oil and gas supplier and cooperation on sanctions has reduced tensions that initially arose over the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and, to a lesser extent, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This article analyzes the extent to which the new pattern of transatlantic energy interdependence and cooperation on sanctions against Russia reshapes the transatlantic relationship and whether it reinforces European strategic autonomy or prolongs a pattern of asymmetric interdependence. The conclusion is that it reinforces it but maintains the traditional asymmetry of the relationship and increases the EU's exposure to a US administration that is less inclined to cooperate and/or more prone to an inward-looking energy model.

AbstractThe Spanish approach to renewable hydrogen has evolved significantly driven by economic and geopolitical factors. Initially framed as a tool for domestic industrial development during the COVID-19 crisis, the 2020 Spanish Hydrogen Roadmap emphasised creating hydrogen clusters for production and consumption. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the European Commission's call for increased ambition in renewable hydrogen in REPowerEU prompted a strategic shift. Spain now focuses on exports and infrastructure development, balancing the drive for domestic green reindustrialisation with an export-oriented model to integrate the Iberian Peninsula's energy with Europe. Despite concerns about historical obstacles to interconnections, Spain prioritises hydrogen diplomacy with key European allies. Looking ahead, Spain envisions hydrogen as a vector for Euro-Mediterranean energy integration, energy cooperation, and business collaboration in Latin America. The chapter concludes that Spain needs to build a national strategy that aligns the domestic and international dimensions of hydrogen development, sending a coherent message to civil society, the private sector and institutions.

The transition towards a renewable regime implies a shift in geopolitical and geo-economic balances. This chapter seeks to analyse the international implications of renewables, as well as their linkages with climate geopolitics and the role of the main renewable powerhouses (China, the US and the EU). It also explores the new geographies of renewables and reviews the literature on their geopolitics. The chapter focuses on the bi-directionality linking geopolitics and renewables, which is key to assessing the geo-economic benefits of the latter. Geopolitics has an economic impact because it might make cross-border renewable cooperation economically prohibitive between rivals. However, the renewable regime is thought to be less conflict-prone and more cooperative, offering new opportunities for economic and political cooperation. The chapter concludes that this requires clear and transparent governance mechanisms to avoid replicating the governance and market failures of the fossil regime.

This analysis of energy relations between Latin America and the EU pays particular attention to their potential and limitations.

Despite the importance of achieving a functioning and decarbonised European Energy Union (EnU) research addressing the public acceptance of cross-border energy interconnections at a European-wide level based upon public opinion polls is limited. To try to fill this gap in the literature, this article relies on a poll with 4000 respondents from the four big EU energy markets: France, Germany, Italy and Spain, including as a new explanatory variable their proximity to an electrical cross-border substation. Overall, 57,4% respondents have not heard about energy interconnections, and 69,2% have not ever heard about the internal energy market. Approaching public acceptance from a procedural justice framework, the article considers procedural justice as a pre-condition? For a fair policy-making process. By addressing the public acceptance of cross-border energy interconnections, the article aims to contribute to the existing literature on their linkages of said interconnections with the European energy policy-making process, deriving specific policy implications to foster cross-border interconnections and energy integration within the EnU.

The socio-political processes that influence the acceptance of climate policies play a crucial role in shaping mitigation strategies. In this paper, we explore the interplay between social and political dynamics and their impact on climate policy support. Using a simplified model of the social and political system, we aim to uncover ways to enhance public support for climate change mitigation measures. Several factors come into play when considering policy support, including social norms, self-efficacy, social learning, and income. By examining climate mitigation policies and accounting for shifting and inherent preferences, we shed light on how individuals contribute to processes of social change. Through simulations, we find that even minimal peer pressure has a positive and significant impact on individuals' inclination towards green behaviours, regardless of whether regressive or progressive policies are implemented. Additionally, assuming uniform self-efficacy across society leads to an overestimation of society's acceptance of green policies. Our results highlight the importance of nurturing existing skills or developing new ones. Finally, our findings reveal that regional heterogeneity matters for climate policy acceptance.

There is an ongoing debate about whether gender equality in education has been achieved or not. Research efforts have focused on primary and secondary education, while there are fewer studies on higher education, and few studies refer to distance education. To contribute to address this gap, this article presents a gender analysis of educational outcomes in economics at Spain's leading distance university, UNED, which is also the largest university in the European Union in terms of enrolment. The aim of the article is to assess whether there is a gender gap in academic results and to identify the sociodemographic and academic variables that may be causing such a gap by analysing how they shape such differences. Finally, the impact of COVID-19 is also considered. The results confirm that women underperformed significantly in our sample in terms of passing and scoring, especially among those between 30 and 45 years of age, who are more likely to have young children. When considering a distribution of family tasks biased against women, along with the higher average age of distance learning university students, gender gaps could probably be greater in nonface-to-face education. COVID-19 narrowed the gender gap during the lockdown period, as some men and women staying at home together were able to improve task sharing capabilities. After the lockdown, however, women's results worsened compared to pre-COVID-19 levels. A possible explanation is that they had to continue performing the same family duties in addition to substituting education and caring services (e.g., nurseries and day centres for the elderly) that did not resume activity immediately or continuously.

Structural economic reform is needed on an unprecedented scale and at an unprecedented rate to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Drawing on the lessons learned from Roosevelt’s New Deal, the paper analyses the extent to which green deal proposals and recovery plans put forth this century can deliver climate-resilient development according to a green growth (ecomodernisation) perspective. The paper concludes that while some greening of laws and post-crisis stimulus packages has been observed, it cannot be unequivocally concluded that pro-growth green deals can deliver a just net-zero and just transition.

El desarrollo del hidrógeno como vector de la descarbonización se ha convertido en un tema de actualidad en el debate energético y económico, tanto europeo como global. Ese interés se ha visto reforzado por la crisis energética europea causada por la invasión rusa de Ucrania, que junto con el imperativo de la descarbonización ha supuesto un impulsor adicional. Este artículo aborda las estrategias y políticas europeas para impulsar el hidrógeno, con foco en sus implicaciones para el caso español. Para ello, se exponen primero de manera somera las características económicas del hidrógeno y sus diferentes tipos, así como las tendencias más destacadas sobre su desarrollo. A continuación, se comparan los principales rasgos de las estrategias europeas de hidrógeno, tanto en el plano nacional como en su modelo de inserción internacional, concluyendo que las divergencias existentes constituyen un obstáculo para la integración de los mercados y por tanto para su despliegue. A continuación, se analizan las políticas españolas de promoción del hidrógeno verde, tanto a nivel nacional como regional, incluyendo la reciente actualización de la Hoja de Ruta presentada por el gobierno español. El artículo concluye que las estrategias de los Estados miembros no son totalmente consistentes y entrañan el riesgo de fragmentar el mercado europeo en mercados nacionales.

Despite geopolitics play a pivotal role in the energy sector, geopolitical aspects are often not considered in the quantitative assessment models aimed at supporting the energy investment decision-making process. To address this issue, this work proposes an Extended Multi-regional Input-Output model (EMRIO) that incorporates import dependence and governance along the value chain. As case study, two alternative energy investments in Mexico – a Natural Gas Power plant (NG) and a Concentrated Solar Power plant (CSP) – are assessed. The method quantifies the geographical diversification of suppliers and the quality of governance. The assessment of the case study shows that the supply chain of the CSP plant includes more countries and with better governance levels than the supply chain of the NG power plant. That means, a priori, that the supply risks of investing in CSP power plants will be lower, as will suppliers' endogenous geopolitical risk. However, a sensitivity analysis considering different providers of the solar plant components reveals that CSP plant value chain could also entail similar or even higher governance risks levels as the NG plant. The scenario where China provides some of the components entails a much higher governance risks, even higher than the NG base case. In consequence, we have proved that the method proposed allows the identification of hidden geopolitical risks that would otherwise go unnoticed. This paper enlarges the existing knowledge on assessment methodologies for energy policy decision-support by measuring diversification and imports dependence from countries with different levels of governance along the whole value chain.

Renewable energies have both strengths and weaknesses, and during the energy transition, they will form with hydrocarbons a more complex geopolitical energy system. The chapter not only argues that renewables improve energy security by reducing energy dependence, but, more importantly, also that they are a driver for projecting soft power that offers new instruments to foreign policy. It starts reviewing the strategic and academic literature before showing that renewables are subjected to similar vulnerabilities and new dependencies. The chapter tries to then look beyond the energy dependence narrative, highlighting the relevance of renewable energies' geopolitical externalities such as grid communities and renewable soft power. Four case studies illustrate the geopolitical externalities of renewables: hydropower in the Nile and Congo rivers, Norway as a capacity companion of Europe's energy transition, the geopolitical reasons behind the failure of Desertec and the Mediterranean Solar Plan and the geopolitics of the Moroccan energy transition.

Se apuntan siete tendencias en energia y clima a seguir en 2021 desde perspectivas que varian por politicas, sectores, regiones y paises: La evolucion de la pandemia y su impacto en energia y clima. El peso de la ciencia y la accion climatica internacional. Los desafios de los grandes emisores. El despliegue de una accion climatica espanola ambiciosa. La recuperacion gradual del mercado del petroleo. La consolidacion de los cambios en los mercados de gas natural. La aceleracion de la transicion energetica y de sus implicaciones geopoliticas.

We investigate whether political ideology has an observable effect on decarbonization ambition, renewable power aims, and preferences for power system balancing technologies in four European countries. Based on the Energy Logics framework, we identify ideologically different transition strategies (state-centered, market-centered, grassroots-centered) contained in government policies and opposition party programs valid in 2019. We compare these policies and programs with citizen poll data. We find that ideology has a small effect: governments and political parties across the spectrum have similar, and relatively ambitious, decarbonization and renewables targets. This mirrors citizens' strong support for ambitious action regardless of their ideological self-description. However, whereas political positions on phasing out fossil fuel power are clear across the policy space, positions on phasing in new flexibility options to balance intermittent renewables are vague or non-existent. As parties and citizens agree on strong climate and renewable power aims, the policy ambition is likely to remain high, even if governments change.

The coronavirus represents a major challenge for the EU and its Member States, with Spain among the countries that will be hardest hit. The crisis has struck when the country is extremely fragile but also at a time when it aspires to play a proactive and leading role in Brussels. This paper provides an initial diagnostic of the political and economic position of Spain in the context of developments in the EU in March and April 2020. It also sets out ideas to minimise the many risks on the horizon and take advantage of the opportunities also created by the situation. It aims to help identify the supranational response most closely aligned with Spain’s national interest, taking into account a number of issues: how to address the management of the disease and the reestablishment of mobility at the European level; the crucial economic decisions for financing reconstruction (the European Stability Mechanism, coronabonds, perpetual debt and the European budget) and the specific allocation of funds (digital agenda, decarbonisation, inclusion and unemployment); the institutional and national alliances and narratives to support the measures; and the best way to connect this complex negotiation to domestic politics, given Spain’s young and polarised parliament and the risk of weakening pro-European sentiment.

To be consistent with both its energy and foreign policies, the EU’s new Energy Diplomacy Action Plan has to develop a Euro-Mediterranean dimension to the European Green Deal that balances the past focus on oil and gas geopolitics with sustainable energy development (including energy governance) and the regional opportunities offered by the green recovery. The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the impacts of the EU’s energy transition for the Mediterranean neighbourhood. A more comprehensive and attractive energy script is needed from the EU to face the challenges of the low carbon transition and foster its renewable opportunities.

The good governance of energy resources and its role in the development of oil and gas producing countries is an area of growing interest in the global agenda. The European Union (EU), as an actor that has the double condition of being a major importer of oil and gas as well as a so-called "normative power", promotes the development of resource governance standards in the Global South. This article analyzes the role of the EU in improving the governance of energy resources, not only from an institutional perspective but also regarding the practical implications that such a normative approach has on European oil and gas import patterns. The paper explores whether EU's oil and gas imports have been affected by the policies of improving transparency and good resource governance in the oil and gas extractive sector, or if these policies have been ineffective in shaping their geographical origin. It tries to address empirically the link between the level of resource governance in oil and gas exporting countries and the EU's oil and gas geographical import pattern.