The Breakthrough Agenda establishes an annual cycle to track developments towards these
goals, identify where further coordinated international action is urgently needed to accelerate
progress and then galvanise public and private international action behind these specific
priorities in order to make these transitions quicker, cheaper, and easier for all.

To initiate this cycle, world leaders tasked the IEA and the UN Climate Change High Level
Champions to develop an annual Breakthrough Agenda report to provide an independent
evidence base and expert recommendations for where stronger international collaboration is
needed.
This document, the 2024 Breakthrough Agenda Report, is the third of these annual reports. It
provides an assessment of progress against the recommendations made last year, updating
recommendations for what more needs to be done.

THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
International collaboration is vital to get the world on track with a net zero pathway. When
countries co-ordinate their actions, they can change global markets in ways that no country
can achieve individually. They can accelerate innovation, create stronger signals for
industry to invest in new technologies, expand economies of scale, establish level playingfields to avoid first-mover disadvantages, and ensure the interoperability of clean
technology infrastructure across borders. The same goes for international collaboration
with and within the private sector; all of this can help to make clean energy technologies
more affordable and accessible to all. Without well-targeted international collaboration, the
transition to net zero global emissions could be delayed by decades.

How international collaboration can accelerate progress

STATE OF INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
The cost of producing renewable and low-carbon hydrogen remains the most important
barrier to its adoption, and closing the cost gap with unabated fossil-based production will
require government action in the form of support schemes. However, there are other areas
in which international co-operation can make a big contribution to overcoming further
barriers, which can in turn help to reduce the cost gap by de-risking project development.
The Hydrogen Breakthrough community identified four key areas for international
collaboration back in 2022: standards and certification, demand creation, technology
demonstration and finance. In this Chapter we assess the progress that the hydrogen
sector has achieved in these areas since the Breakthrough Agenda Report 2023.
Significant progress has been made on standards and certification, with the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) issuing a specification for GHG emissions
associated with hydrogen, and 37 governments signing a Declaration of Intent for mutual
recognition of certification schemes at COP 28. Progress has also been made on finance
and investment, with multiple new international initiatives to scale up support for hydrogen
projects having emerged since COP 28.

Awareness of the impact of methane leakage has been growing in recent years,
and governments have taken steps with the objective of improving data robustness
and availability. For example, in 2020 the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) launched the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (its flagship oil and
gas reporting and mitigation programme), which has developed very detailed
guidance for methane measurement. In November 2023, the US DoE announced
an international working group composed of 12 countries, the European Union and
the East Mediterranean Gas Forum, to establish a measurement, monitoring,
reporting and verification (MRV) framework for providing comparable and reliable
information to natural gas market participants. Regulations introducing MRV
practices and providing transparency are also coming forward. The EU Methane
Regulation, approved in May 2024, introduces mandatory MRV requirements on
domestic production and establishes a transparency platform with country profiles
(including non-EU member states exporting to the European Union).
Such efforts can lead to improved national data inventories, but building the
necessary evidence, verifying it and making it available to market participants and
the wider public will require some time. In the interim, governments can use other
data sources that have been developed by public organisations and the private
sector, using the best available technologies for measurement and estimation to
provide more accurate emissions accounting than using current national
inventories. Some examples from public organisations are the IEA’s Methane
Tracker, UNEP’s International Methane Emissions Observatory and the EU Joint
Research Centre’s Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. Private
sector examples include the Environmental Defense Fund’s MethaneSAT and
tools developed by companies such as Airmo, GHGSat, Kayrros and Orbio Earth.

STATE OF THE TRANSITION
The cement sector is not on track to meet net zero by 2050, with no substantive decline in
global emissions over the past decade. While an increasing number of projects for carbon
capture and storage (CCS) and other decarbonisation technologies are being announced,
policy is not yet strong enough globally to drive the number and scale of projects needed
across all major geographies.

STATE OF INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
Since the Breakthrough Agenda Report 2023, international collaboration on cement deep
decarbonisation has continued to move forward, with noteworthy developments including
several collaborative research consortia formed under the Global Cement and Concrete
Association (GCCA) Innovandi programme, and the launch of a number of country-specific
partnerships to boost technical and financial assistance. Nevertheless, many of the
developments have yet to deliver substantial tangible results – both acceleration and an
expanded reach will be needed to get on track for the Cement and Concrete Breakthrough’s
ambitious objective of making near-zero emission cement the preferred choice in global
markets, with efficient use and near-zero emission cement production established and
growing in every region by 2030. Strengthened leadership from governments is needed to
create demand and enable deployment of near-zero emission production technologies,
nationally and internationally. Resource gaps need to be filled to empower initiatives to
move forward at the speed and scale required.

Source:https://www.iea.org/reports/breakthrough-agenda-report-2024