Neither the first round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) nor currently implemented climate policies are on track to meeting the Paris Agreement’s objectives. Parties are expected to increase their ambition and produce new NDCs covering the post-2030 period. The design of a multi-dimensional set of policy measures that comprise countries’ climate policy agendas is supported by equally diverse integrated assessment modelling (IAM) activities. Notwithstanding the recent progress in the IAM literature and scenario space, the modelling world has fallen short of its promise to include non-scientists in its process; to account for individual choices and lifestyle changes that are indirectly narrated as assumptions not interacting with the vividly modelled technology-economy-environment-policy flows; and to place climate action as a cross-cutting theme in the sustainability spectrum. IAM COMPACT will support the assessment of global climate goals, progress, and feasibility space, as well as the design of the next round of NDCs and policy planning beyond 2030 for major emitters and non-high-income countries. We will use a diverse ensemble of models, tools, and insights from social and political sciences and operations research, and will integrate bodies of knowledge to co-create the research process and enhance transparency, robustness, and policy relevance. We will explore the role of structural changes in major emitting sectors and of political, behaviour, and social aspects in mitigation; quantify factors promoting or hindering climate neutrality; and account for extreme scenarios, to deliver a range of global and national pathways that are environmentally effective, economically viable, politically feasible, and socially desirable. In doing so, we will fully account for COVID-19 impacts and recovery strategies, and align climate action with broader sustainability goals, while developing technical capacity and promoting ownership in non-high-income countries.

FUELPHORIA will demonstrate the establishment of sustainable complete value chains for advanced biofuels and RFNBOs for providing Europe with sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply schemes. The project will practically showcase a portfolio of nine complete Value Chains which will be set up and tested in real environment contexts with the active participation of all key players including: the feedstock suppliers (two biogas plants, a winery plant, an urban waste treatment plant); the technology providers who will convert through chemical, electrochemical, biological, thermochemical, and photobiological processes the feedstock (CO2, digestate, urban/ municipal biowaste) into an array of advanced biofuels and RFNBOs (light to long parafins i.e. CH4, medium/long chain hydrocarbons, esters i.e. biodiesel, and light alcohols i.e. ethanol, methanol) that meet quality specifications as defined by the end-users in the transport sector (aviation/maritime, road transport) and in the power production sector (gas or oil fired thermal plants), through four DEMOs in Europe (Belgium, Spain, Greece) while European export potential through international collaboration with Africa is also envisaged. Special emphasis will be also given to the logistics around the fuel production systems, i.e., for the sustainable supply of feedstock and the efficient transport of the final products to their end application. To do this, across the FUELPHORIA project the value chain approach is combined with the Life Cycle Assessment approach in order to not only consider all the different stages of the value chain from feedstock to end use but also to explore how the value chain operates as part of a larger system. FUELPHORIA will define and setup business models and marketing concepts and prepare market entry of the technology solutions as well as of the end-products, and will develop policy recommendations for realising the energy system transition potential.