Reaching the climate targets set in the Paris Agreement on climate change requires decarbonizing all parts of the global economy. The electrification of industry processes-and more specifically, electrosynthesis (ES)-is an important decarbonization mechanism. To tap into this mechanism's potential and accelerate the decarbonization of these processes, I argue that public policy needs to perform two tasks. First, energy policy needs to enable the provision of CO2 emissions-free baseload electricity. Second, innovation policy needs to accelerate cost reductions for ES. Here, I discuss why this is the case, what the challenges are, how policy makers can address them, and how political ambition can be increased.
Keywords: Electrochemical Energy Conversion; Electrochemistry; Energy Policy; Industrial Chemistry.
© 2021 The Author(s).