The politics and economics of sustainable structural transformation The industrial sector accounts for a quarter of global direct CO2 emissions. Hard-to-abate heavy industries, such as steel, chemical, cement and aluminium, account for the bulk of these emissions. Decarbonizing them is essential to cope with global warming, but also challenging due to the need to coordinate upstream and downstream investments, and the different pathways offered by alternative technologies. Low-emission hydrogen plays an essential role as energy carrier or feedstock, and it requires new investments in various related technologies (electrolysis, CCUS, DRI steel production, specialised vessels, etc.) and infrastructures (solar and wind parks, pipelines, terminals, transmission grids, etc.). The shift to low-emission hydrogen may therefore trigger profound changes in industrial structures, trade relations, geography of production and global value chains.