Hydrogen’s climate benefits in doubt

Research by Environmental Defense Fund warns that hydrogen leakage could contribute to short-term global warming potential

Hydrogen’s role in enabling countries to reach net-zero targets may be complicated by its indirect, short-term global warming potential, suggests a recent study by environmental non-profit the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). The study, titled ‘Climate consequences of hydrogen emissions’ and published in peer-reviewed journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, notes that hydrogen’s warming impact is “overlooked and underestimated”, as the indirect warming effects of the gas may last only a couple of decades—whereas standard methods for measuring climate impacts tend to consider warming potential in the long term. “When we started looking into [hydrogen], we realised that, even though there