Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) has regained prominence in Europe’s industrial decarbonisation agenda, particularly for sectors where electrification and efficiency cannot eliminate process emissions. Since 2020, research on CCUS in Europe has expanded rapidly alongside renewed policy attention and growing infrastructure plans. Despite this growth, the literature remains fragmented across technical, economic, governance, and social domains, limiting its usefulness for deployment-oriented decision-making. This review examines European CCUS research published between 2020 and 2025 through a deployment-focused synthesis of 262 publications drawn from multiple academic and policy-relevant sources. The review frames the literature around five themes: Technology and Engineering, Policy and Governance, Economics and Markets, Regional Deployment, and Social Acceptance. This approach distinguishes areas where evidence is relatively mature from those characterised by persistent uncertainty or unresolved disagreement. The analysis reveals strong convergence on several points. CCUS is widely regarded as indispensable for decarbonising hard-to-abate industrial sectors, while high upfront capital requirements remain a central barrier to deployment. European experience and infrastructure development are heavily concentrated in the North Sea region, led by Norway. At the same time, important disagreements persist regarding future cost reductions, the balance between carbon storage and utilisation pathways, and the practical adequacy of accessible storage capacity. The literature also exhibits pronounced geographic concentration, with Southern and Eastern Europe receiving comparatively limited attention despite their industrial relevance. Social acceptance has gained visibility in recent years but remains unevenly addressed and weakly integrated into deployment planning. Overall, the findings indicate that European CCUS research is moving beyond questions of technical feasibility toward challenges of system integration, governance coordination, and societal legitimacy that will ultimately shape deployment outcomes. This review makes three specific contributions to the CCUS literature. First, it provides the first deployment-oriented thematic synthesis of European CCUS research (2020–2025) that explicitly evaluates the strength of consensus across technological, economic, governance, regional, and social domains. Second, it systematically maps geographical research concentration against deployment relevance, revealing persistent mismatches between research coverage and industrial and infrastructure needs across Europe. Third, by distinguishing areas of mature evidence from unresolved uncertainty, the review formulates a deployment-focused research and policy roadmap to support more coordinated, inclusive, and evidence-based CCUS decision-making in Europe.

Understanding climate risk requires an integrated perspective that links environmental hazards to societal preparedness. This study develops the Climate Risk and Societal Preparedness Index (CRISP) to measure vulnerability and readiness across 36 countries—31 OECD members and five Key Partners—between 2002 and 2022. A comprehensive and state-of-the-art literature review was conducted to identify the initial set of indicators. Correlation and network analysis methods were then applied to determine the final set of indicators, ensuring internal coherence, reducing redundancy, and strengthening the explanatory power of the index. CRISP distinguishes between climate-related risk (disasters and temperature anomalies) and societal preparedness (economic, demographic, institutional, and infrastructural factors), whereas most existing indices combine these dimensions within a single composite measure. The index enhances cross-national and longitudinal comparability. Results reveal diverse vulnerability patterns: Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands combine low risk with strong preparedness, while India and South Africa show persistent adaptive gaps. The United States and China face high risks but demonstrate comparatively robust preparedness. The findings suggest that cross-country differences in vulnerability are associated with socio-economic and governance conditions rather than exposure alone. CRISP thus provides a decision-support tool to identify weaknesses, prioritize interventions, and strengthen resilience in national climate strategies.

The years 2023 and 2024 were characterized by unprecedented warming across the globe, underscoring the urgency of climate action. Robust science advice for decision makers on subjects as complex as climate change requires deep cross- and interdisciplinary understanding. However, navigating the ever-expanding and diverse peer-reviewed literature on climate change is enormously challenging for individual researchers. We elicited expert input through an online questionnaire (188 respondents from 45 countries) and prioritized 10 key advances in climate-change research with high policy relevance. The insights span a wide range of areas, from changes in methane and aerosol emissions to the factors shaping citizens' acceptance of climate policies. This synthesis and communications effort forms the basis for a science-policy report distributed to party delegations ahead of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to inform their positions and arguments on critical issues, including heat-adaptation planning, comprehensive mitigation strategies, and strengthened governance in energy-transition minerals value chains.

The energy transition has not benefited all segments of society equally, raising critical questions about the design of just energy policies and projects. This inequity highlights the need for inclusive approaches, especially within living labs piloting sustainable energy solutions. A key challenge for living labs is achieving broad societal impact, which is fundamentally tied to inclusivity. Living lab research must prioritize diversifying participants and stakeholders to effectively scale solutions across diverse communities. Individual characteristics, such as gender, ethnic identity, level of education, wealth, and income, strongly influence the ability to participate in energy projects. As spaces for co-production and transformation, living labs should fully embrace diversity as a key principle, fostering deliberative exchange connecting actors from different backgrounds. The European Green Deal prioritizes a "just transition," signaling the political demand to develop transdisciplinary research projects that address issues such as energy poverty, the gender pay gap, and social segregation. To investigate this disparity, we designed and implemented four citizen action labs in Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and T & uuml;rkiye, experimenting with different notions of inclusivity and diversity. Based on our findings, we explore the concept of inclusivity at the sociopolitical context (scaling up), stakeholder, and population locality (scaling deep and scaling out). In particular, we focus on the role of recruitment as a bottleneck for diverse public engagement. Leveraging the knowledge gained from the research process, this article provides evidence for setting up living labs in the energy transition, targeting distinctive social groups to create a meaningful impact across society.

This study provides an analysis of the pathways through which the landscape of Transatlantic energy security has been changing. These pathways are marked by recent geopolitical crises and two outstanding challenges: strengthening energy security and achieving the green transition. The Ukraine war and rising tensions in the Middle East have once more demonstrated how fragile global supply chains are due to their dependence on Russian natural gas and reliance on oil from the Middle East. These crises have brought up the urgent need for energy diversification, with renewable energy being at the center and a strategic means of reducing geopolitical risks in this context. It also analyses how the recent developments have redefined the Transatlantic region's energy-related perspectives, especially how the United States and the European Union cooperate to ensure energy supplies while accelerating the transition toward sustainable

Interventions aiming at behavioral change are common tools for assessing and stimulating environmentally friendly lifestyles. To obtain representative and scalable results from the interventions, the experimental design of the interventions is crucial. Likewise, an operational plan is significant concerning the coherence and consistency of the interventions and the comparability of the results from different interventions. Such a guideline contributes to the design, execution, and supervision of the interventions, provides standardisation and enhances collaboration with the intervention partners. Intervention guidelines also pertain to the strategic planning of data requirements and collection procedures. Based on the work conducted within the context of the EU-funded ENCHANT project, the guidelines presented in this manuscript are structured based on the key phases of planning and design, implementation, and analysis and reporting. Another key area that needs to be considered and included in the guidelines is the planning necessities for the administrative structure for the interventions. This includes allocating staff roles and responsibilities and potential challenges and obstacles that may arise during implementation. Ethical concerns are also addressed.

The growing use of fossil fuels and rising greenhouse gas emissions have become critical issues in world politics. The European Union (EU) Green Deal offers to make Europe “the first climate-neutral continent” by 2050. The Green Deal seeks to transform the EU into a resource-efficient, competitive, circular economy. As a normative power in international politics, the EU can influence other actors’ behaviours, which makes it an international norm diffuser. In this sense, the “normative power Europe” concept matches the role of the Green Deal. This article examines if and how the EU Green Deal is a successful tool to maintain the EU’s role as a normative power during carbon neutrality, addressing the opportunities and challenges of the EU Green Deal.

The growing energy demand has increased the necessity for low-carbon energy transition to tackle climate change. Although existing literature primarily centres on the acceptance of these changes and their technologies, the growing number of low-carbon initiatives and renewable energy projects has prompted a substantial increase in literature exploring the social, political, and cultural resistance and opposition to these shifts. This study systematically analyses current literature to scrutinise the encountered resistance in transitioning toward a low-carbon economy. It extensively investigates the factors driving resistance across micro, meso, and macro levels, specifically focusing on three technology categories: consumer technologies, renewable energy, and smart energy systems. By synthesising insights from diverse studies that explore the political, social, economic, and cultural contexts of resistance, the primary aim is to contribute to the existing knowledge on energy transition and to provide insights that support more socially sustainable and democratic pathways toward low-carbon societies. Moreover, this study presents policy recommendations to address existing and potential resistance and opposition in this transition. Highlighting the distinctive aspects of each resistance case stresses the significance of acknowledging local intricacies and nuances in comprehending and addressing this resistance.

IntroductionThe link between lifestyles and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions has prioritized climate mitigation strategies of cities worldwide. As cities have increasingly generated GHG emissions by their industrial and transportation activities, their role in climate mitigation has gained prominence. Cities' climate mitigation policies to reduce the GHG intensity of their residents' daily lives are one of their significant efforts to tackle climate change. Lighthouse Cities (LCs), in particular, have emerged as remarkable actors in promoting lifestyle changes for their residents.MethodsThis study examines climate mitigation strategies of LCs of Climate CAMPAIGNers project, including Baku, Vilnius, Lahti, Izmir, Trujillo, Athens, Linz, Milan, Cape Town, Dublin, and Skopelos, addressing lifestyle changes by conducting an expert survey in 11 LCs involving 89 respondents. The findings of the expert survey are comparatively analyzed across 11 LCs.ResultsThe results show that experts form Lighthouse Cities identify increasing awareness and information provision as a significant component of climate mitigation policies. Concerning lifestyle changes, strategies toward energy efficiency and sustainable mobility are highlighted as the primary areas to be prioritized.DiscussionThis study enhances the understanding of cities' capacity to reduce their residents' GHG emissions. The findings can be utilized to identify and tailor policies for supporting the Lighthouse Cities in their climate change mitigation efforts and provide pointers for selecting the lifestyle changes that can be promoted and prioritized in Lighthouse Cities.

Abstract Decarbonization initiatives rely heavily on shifts in citizen’s behaviour. This study presents findings from a large-scale, controlled field experiment (N=2,554) conducted across six European countries, assessing the effectiveness of intervention campaigns aimed at reducing electricity consumption under real-world conditions. Our findings offer a nuanced perspective: only a modest proportion of invited participants actively engaged, but they achieved significant reductions in electricity consumption. We found no significant differences in the effectiveness of different intervention strategies, ranging from information to social norms or competition, suggesting the type of intervention may not be as important as previously thought. A critical finding of our research is that, although psychological factors were predictive of self-reported saving behaviour, they did not correlate with actual consumption data. Our results underscore the complexity of influencing energy consumption behaviour and suggest that future policies and interventions should take into account the multifaceted interplay between structural conditions and individual behaviour.

One fundamental aspect of the energy transition involves fostering the active involvement of citizens in the energy system, going beyond their traditional roles as mere "consumers" or "customers." This shift hinges on individuals' perceptions and displays of energy citizenship. While no universal consensus exists, indicators of energy citizenship include increased awareness of energy issues, incorporation of energy considerations into lifestyle choices, and direct participation in the energy system. Despite this acknowledgement, the current literature lacks an overarching conceptual framework for understanding energy citizenship. This study employs a hybrid methodology, merging systematic and integrative literature reviews. The objective is to explain how existing studies conceptualise energy citizenship, outlining key dimensions and drivers in the literature. The findings reveal that drivers of energy citizenship span socio-political, economic, environmental, psychological, and ethical dimensions.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS:As a part of the framework of the EU-funded Energy efficiency through Behavior CHANge Transition (ENCHANT) project, the present paper intends to provide a "Research Protocol" of a web-based trial to: (i) assess the effectiveness of behavioral intervention strategies--either single or in combination--on electricity saving, and (ii) unravel the psychological factors contributing to intervention effectiveness in households across Europe. METHODS AND MATERIALS:Six distinct interventions (i.e., information provision, collective vs. individual message framing, social norms, consumption feedback, competitive elements, and commitment strategies) targeting electricity saving in households from six European countries (i.e., Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, Romania, and Türkiye) are evaluated, with an initial expected samples of about 1500 households per country randomly assigned to 12 intervention groups and two control groups, and data is collected through an ad-hoc online platform. The primary outcome is the weekly electricity consumption normalized to the last seven days before measurement per person per household. Secondary outcomes are the peak consumption during the last day before measurement and the self-reported implementation of electricity saving behaviors (e.g., deicing the refrigerator). The underlying psychological factors expected to mediate and/or moderate the intervention effects on these outcomes are intentions to save electricity, perceived difficulty of saving energy, attitudes to electricity saving, electricity saving habit strength, social norms to save electricity, personal norms, collective efficacy, emotional reaction to electricity consumption, and national identity. The intervention effectiveness will be evaluated by comparing psychological factors and consumption variables before and after the intervention, leading to a 14 (groups including 2 control groups) × 6 (time) mixed factorial design, with one factor between (group) and one factor within subjects (time)-6 measurements of the psychological factors and 6 readings of the electricity meters, which gives then 5 weeks of electricity consumption. RESULTS:Data collection for the present RCT started in January 2023, and by October 2023 data collection will conclude. DISCUSSION:Upon establishing feasibility and effectiveness, the outcomes of this study will assist policymakers, municipalities, NGOs, and other communal entities in identifying impactful interventions tailored to their unique circumstances and available resources. Researchers will benefit from a flexible, structured tool that allows the design, implementation and monitoring of complex interventions protocols. Crucially, the intervention participants will benefit from electricity saving strategies, fostering immediate effectiveness of the interventions in real-life contexts. TRIAL REGISTRATION:This trial was preregistered in the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/9vtn4.

Interventions aiming at behavioural change are common tools for assessing and stimulating environmentally friendly lifestyles. To obtain representative and scalable results from the interventions, the experimental design of the interventions is crucial. Likewise, an operational plan is significant concerning the coherence and consistency of the interventions and the comparability of the results from different interventions. Such a guideline contributes to the design, execution, and supervision of the interventions, provides standardisation and enhances collaboration with the intervention partners. Intervention guidelines also pertain to the strategic planning of data requirements and collection procedures. Based on the work conducted within the context of the EU-funded ENCHANT project, the guidelines presented in this manuscript are structured based on the key phases of planning and design, implementation, and analysis and reporting. Another key area that needs to be considered and included in the guidelines is the planning necessities for the administrative structure for the interventions. This includes allocating staff roles and responsibilities and potential challenges and obstacles that may arise during implementation. Ethical concerns are also addressed.

Sustainable production and consumption in the food supply chain are critical for the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, it is significant to identify the factors that shape individuals’ food consumption behaviour. Türkiye prioritises sustainable food consumption and the prevention of food loss and waste as a national focus. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the drivers of individuals’ food consumption habits in Türkiye through a survey with the participants being households in Izmir, the third most populous city in Türkiye. More specifically, the study has two main objectives: (i) to identify the factors influencing households’ food consumption preferences and (ii) to demonstrate how the factors concerning sustainable food consumption interact through a survey conducted in Izmir. Based on the state-of-art literature, an online survey was completed by 515 respondents in Izmir. Through an analysis of the survey responses, this study provides a descriptive analysis of socio-demographic variables and a correlation analysis between socio-demographics and sustainable food consumption behaviours, including food shopping behaviour, food purchasing and consumption behaviour, dietary habits, and food waste behaviour. The results demonstrate that socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, education level, income level, and the number of residents in the household are significant for sustainable food consumption behaviour. The survey results also demonstrate that the respondents do not consider carbon footprint generation from food production and transportation in their decisions or behaviours. The study’s main limitation is that the survey is implemented in a single city, Izmir. Future research may extend the scope to other cities in Türkiye, allowing a comparative analysis.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown measures decreased energy demand and consumption in several regions. In addition to the decrease in energy demand, the slowdown of global economic and social activities also caused a decline in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The European Union (EU) member countries have been among the countries most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and drops in energy demand and CO2 emissions. Between January and August 2020, CO2 emissions decreased by 10.6% in EU-27 and the United Kingdom. As the restrictions for lockdowns started to diminish, economic activities restarted; however, the level of CO2 emissions still differ in different countries. This situation also links to the ambitious CO2 emission reductions of EU countries under the EU Climate and Energy Package (CARE). According to European Environment Agency Report, EU-27 achieved 20% reduction target for CO2 emissions in 2020 in a general sense within the framework of 20-20-20 climate targets while some countries could not achieve their national targets. Moreover, EU countries, in general terms, also achieved the target of a 20% increase in the share of renewable energy resources. In 2020, the share of renewable energy resources reached 21.3% in energy consumption in European countries. Following the 20-20-20 targets, the EU recently adopted a 55% net emissions reduction target by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050. This tendency demonstrated that EU countries were on the path of decarbonising their economies. However, the Russia–Ukraine war challenged the energy security of the EU countries vis-à-vis cuts in Russia's natural gas supply. As a response, most of the European countries experienced backsliding towards local fossil fuels to diversify Russian gas. This made energy security a high priority for the EU-27 countries and pushed them to reduce their energy dependence. To this end, this chapter aims to examine the dilemma faced by EU countries experiencing the adverse impacts of climate change and energy insecurity. In this sense, it analyses to what extent the Covid-19 measures and decrease in CO2 emissions in Europe contribute to achieving the EU Climate Target Plans for 2030 and 2050 while discussing whether the Russia–Ukraine war has the potential to change Europe's targets towards a carbon-neutral continent.

This study seeks to better understand the relationships between environmental citizenship, energy citizenship, and related phenomena and the theoretical development and operationalization processes of environmental citizenship and energy citizenship in the path towards the energy transition and climate change mitigation through a bibliometric analysis. Doing so first provides an overview of how these concepts are defined in the literature establishes the frameworks for environmental citizenship and energy citizenship, including the characteristics, drivers, and pathways to their operationalization. The subsequent bibliometric analysis is conducted via the VOSviewer software, with more than 1,300 titles from the Web of Science database published between 1992 and 2021. The search keywords are “environmental citizenship” and “energy citizenship”. The results from the analysis highlight the terms sustainability and behaviour as the overarching concepts and common points of discussion regarding environmental citizenship and energy citizenship. Moreover, although environmental citizenship preserves its central position in the scholarly debate, there is a shift towards the phenomenon of energy citizenship and a set of emerging themes including “justice”, “energy democracy”, and “sustainable development”.

Energy transition is one of the main pillars of the European Union’s climate change strategy suite. The policies set forth by European Union members to support energy transition are transposed into national policies, strategies, and action plans. Energy transition calls for empowering citizens and communities regarding energy-related initiatives. Of particular importance are smart energy systems and their potential for involving individuals and communities in energy transition initiatives. However, not all citizens are willing to invest in renewable energy or smart appliances. Thus, there is a need for implementing smart energy initiatives, which have three main steps, namely, awareness, mindset (readiness for action), and action. Bearing in mind the lack of uniformity in this area across the European Union, this manuscript assesses the levels of awareness, mindset, and action utilizing the results of a comprehensive international survey, the ECHOES project, with respect to demographic and socioeconomic variables, such as age, income level, and education level. The analysis reveals that 58% of respondents from the West European sample demonstrate a high level of awareness, 56% are ready for action, and 63% already demonstrate action. The percentages are similar for the East European sample, with 56% demonstrating a high level of awareness, 55% are ready for action, and 66% already demonstrating action. Overall, women have higher levels of awareness, readiness for action, and action. For both Western and Eastern European countries, education level and income level are important factors for smart energy adoption, with education levels proving to be more significant for East European countries.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of field experiments utilizing social norms, commitment and price-based interventions to promote energy conservation, load shifting, and energy efficiency behaviors. Treatment effects reported in the extant literature, as well as the factors that may strengthen or dampen these effects are reviewed. We find that social norm and incentive-based interventions mostly achieve small reductions in energy consumption, and that the effects of commitment-based interventions are essentially zero for the most part. Incentive effects on energy efficiency investments are mostly non-existent, safe for a few exceptions. One gap that we identify is the almost complete absence of field experiments leveraging social norms or commitment to promote energy efficiency investments. We discuss a broad range of (mostly under-researched) plausible moderators of the interventions' effects. Crucially, a more careful attention to moderators in future research can highlight instances in which interventions can be effective, notwithstanding their modest or non-existent average treatment effects. Our review offers a starting point in this regard.

Recent developments in the Arctic region, mainly marked by climate change, have caused the region to receive increasing attention from regional and non-regional actors, mainly due to emerging energy-related opportunities and environmental concerns. The main reason for non-regional stakeholders to become involved in the Arctic region to pursue their interests is to obtain the observer status in the Arctic Council. Accordingly, this manuscript analyzes the long-term perspective of Türkiye’s involvement in the Arctic region as a non-regional actor and reveals a set of enablers and disablers pertaining to energy and environmental domains. For this purpose, in-depth interviews with experts from Türkiye, with Arctic Council members, or with observer countries are conducted. Results of the analysis are also utilized to provide insights regarding countries with similar profiles to Türkiye, i.e., middle-power and developing countries that are geographically distant from the Arctic region. The results highlight energy security, hydrocarbon reserves, and climate change as significant factors for countries such as Türkiye. Scientific, private sector, or intergovernmental cooperation with regional actors to encourage global action and environmental initiatives are the main enablers. Challenges in the extraction and sharing of energy resources, high costs and high technology requirements of energy exploration and extraction activities, increasing human activity, and damages to the Arctic ecosystem are identified as significant disablers.