Headline: RIFS Blog December 2023

The availability of renewable energy is an important factor for future investment decisions in the chemical and steel industry. This is a key finding of our survey of 300 decision-makers from the chemical and steel industry. 92 per cent of the respondents anticipate that their company will relocate facilities as it seeks to decarbonize production. In addition to low-cost renewable energies, the respondents identify political support as a key factor in investment location decisions.

The agreement reached at the recent COP28 conference has been hailed as the dawn of a new era in the transition to renewable energy. The Guardian newspaper concurred, headlining its story on the final agreement: COP28 landmark deal agreed to ‘transition away’ from fossil fuels. Simultaneously, critical voices from indigenous communities and environmental organizations have dismissed the event as "business as usual." The host country, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), derives its prosperity mainly from fossil fuels and finite resources, and the UAE's presidency added another layer of complexity to the conference.

From adapting public spaces to climate change to rethinking mobility and decarbonising the heat supply – cities are grappling with major transformation processes as they move towards a more resilient and climate-friendly future. Researchers with the Franco-German Forum for the Future are studying cities in France and Germany that have embraced ambitious goals for change.

New ways of collaborating with artists are being trialled at the CityScienceLab in Hamburg. But what goals do artists and scientists pursue when they cooperate? RIFS researcher Teresa Erbach is studying the role of art and culture in transformation processes and evaluated a cooperation programme at HafenCity University Hamburg.

In the vast arena of global commodities, fertilizers play a silent yet fundamental role. With a market value of $207 billion, they are a cornerstone of modern agriculture, silently underpinning the sustenance of 8 billion people daily. But this essential industry is at a crossroads, grappling with the enormous challenges of decarbonization, volatile geopolitics, and the imperative of food security. The RIFS research project "Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation: Implications of an International Hydrogen Economy" hosted a series of webinars on the "Geopolitics of Fertilizer Supply Chains" about the complexities of the fertilizer industry and the most urgent challenges facing this crucial sector.

The small town of Loos-en-Gohelle in the north of France is a fascinating example of how culture can be harnessed to foster socio-ecological change. We were so intrigued by this story of transformation that we decided to take a closer look. Our findings are published in a new RIFS Study.