Dear readers,

Those of you familiar with the European Energy Research Alliance know well our “raison d’être”: The promotion of European and international scientific collaboration in all the research fields related to the Clean Energy Transition.

Our stated mission is to “catalyze European energy research for a climate neutral society by 2050”.

As EERA, we fundamentally believe in the virtues of collaboration.

I am writing this editorial hours after the flood of so-called “illegal” votes have secured Joe Biden to become the 46^th President of the United States.

In this difficult time of Covid pandemic, together with its health, social and economic consequences, this comes as a breeze of fresh air flowing underneath our face mask, a corner of grey sky turning into blue, a new space opening for hopes and action.

What Biden will mean to Climate Change might still look uncertain but can in no way be underestimated.

Presumably, faith in the lights of Science will return in place of evangelic prophecies.

In his campaign pledges, Biden committed to:

• Implement a massive Green Deal, ensuring the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.
• Reintegrate the COP 21 Paris Agreement and reverse much of the 125 other environmental safeguards Donald Trump had overturned.
• Rally the rest of the world to meet the threat of climate change.

If of all the above surely indicates a 180° turn on US stance on Climate Change, the actual ability for Biden’s administration to turn these commitments into action will heavily depend on the balances of forces within the complex US political system, and in particular the composition of the US Senate, that still has to emerge early next year.

But Biden’s victory perhaps is even more significant in that it heralds a new, hopefully irreversible, era of multilateralism.

This could mean restoring the preeminence of today devastated global governance institutions, instruments, and initiatives.

This could mean replacing competition by collaboration, in all the areas where human civilization is critically at stake.

And in the countdown before Brexit comes into force, may it also safeguard collaboration with our esteemed British friends and colleagues from damageable short-term political strategies.

As EERA we believe in the virtues of collaboration.

And in an effort to boost the upcoming new impetus, EERA’s commitment is to leave no stone unturned for further strengthening European and international collaboration in harnessing Climate Change.

Adel El Gammal

EERA Secretary General