Governments' decisions are critical to unlock growth for low-carbon hydrogen

Governments must move faster and take decisive actions on a wide range of policy measures to enable low-carbon hydrogen, said the International Energy Agency in the Global Hydrogen Review 2021.

“It is important to support the development of low-carbon hydrogen if governments are going to meet their climate and energy ambitions,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director.

“We have experienced false starts before with hydrogen, so we can’t take success for granted. But this time, we are seeing exciting progress in making hydrogen cleaner, more affordable and more available for use across different sectors of the economy. Governments need to take rapid actions to lower the barriers that are holding low-carbon hydrogen back from faster growth, which will be important if the world is to have a chance of reaching net zero emissions by 2050,” he added.

Countries with hydrogen strategies have committed at least US $37 billion to the development and deployment of hydrogen technologies, said the agency. The private sector has announced additional investment of US $300 billion. 

Hydrogen, is a light, storable and energy-dense, with no direct emissions of pollutants or greenhouse gases. However, the cost of producing it is high. 

International Energy Agency estimates US $1200 billion of investments in hydrogen are required between now and 2030.