sustainability
Why technology alone won’t secure Europe’s rail future
Rail transport carries only a modest share of passengers and freight across the EU, yet it is widely regarded as one of the most important tools available for meeting Europe's climate targets. The European Union has spent decades building a Single European Railway Area but persistent gaps in governance, infrastructure investment and cross-border coordination continue ...
Towards a planetary boundary framework
In 2009, a team, led by the climate scientist Prof Johan Rockström, identified nine natural processes that regulate Earth’s biosphere and keep it stable. These include climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, novel entities, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion and aerosol loading. For each of these processes the team defined the ...
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Kati Koponen on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Kati Koponen is senior scientist at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. She’s among the authors of a report commissioned by the European Parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on the role of Direct Air Capture (DAC). What are the major carbon dioxide capture technologies currently in use worldwide – and what are their ...
Carbon dioxide removal technologies: can they help us fight climate change?
The final document of the last United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly known as COP30, acknowledges that the world is approaching an overshoot – that is, exceeding the 1.5 °C global warming threshold. Reducing future emission will be essential, but no longer sufficient: we will also need to actively remove the carbon dioxide (CO2) ...
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Sabine Fuss on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
Sabine Fuss is an economist and head of research department at the Potsdam Institute of Climate Research Impact. To start, there are multiple ways to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, and several terms are often used: carbon dioxide removal (CDR), carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), direct air capture (DAC), bioenergy combined with ...
Beyond technology: How social sciences and humanities drive human-centric innovation
As the European Union (EU) prepares the groundwork for the next Horizon Europe Framework Programme, many experts have been calling for the human and social dimension of progress to be better integrated into the EU’s research and innovation agenda. The STOA workshop ‘Humanities and social sciences at the heart of Europe’s future’, organised on 3 ...
A scientist’s opinion: interview with Dr Péter Benczúr on measuring wellbeing rather than economic prosperity
“The ultimate objective should always be to provide a good life and wellbeing to all people” Dr Péter Benczúr is a scientific officer at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), where he is one of the coordinators of the transversal work on ‘sustainable and inclusive wellbeing’ (SIWB). He has been involved in the development ...
Can e-fuels power Europe’s low carbon future?
In the spirit of technological neutrality, Europe is exploring multiple pathways to decarbonisation. Among them are e-fuels, whose chemical composition is identical to that of fossil fuels but are produced through synthetic processes rather than extracted and refined. This makes them a potential low-carbon alternative – provided that key sustainability criteria are met and critical ...