The “Mission Possible Partnership” has launched today (27 January) to help decarbonise heavy industry and transport.
The coalition was announced at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda and is aiming to accelerate the clean-up of the high-polluting industries, which are typically hard to decarbonise and represent 30% of global emissions.
The Partnership will help more industries mobilise resources, align across a greater number of organisations, and accelerate the “Race to Zero”. It also aims to help carbon-intensive sectors reach their targets and bring in the “systemic change needed to succeed” by providing a “clear path to net-zero emissions”.
Christoph Wolff, head of mobility at the World Economic Forum, said: “The number of country commitments to net-zero emissions targets by 2050 has grown during 2020 and is significant.
“Public private cooperation across the transport and heavy industry sectors is crucial for the next phase of action. The launch of the Mission Possible Partnership at the Davos Agenda will accelerate these efforts in the run-up to COP26 in November.”
Mission Possible Partnership aims to showcase net-zero agreement breakthroughs across heavy industry
The Partnership, which is run by the World Economic Forum, Energy Transitions Commission, Rocky Mountain Institute, and the We Mean Business coalition, aims to build on the success of the Mission Possible Platform.
It was launched at the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit in 2019, and has grown from 30 companies in 2019 to 400 – and they are all committed to working on concrete actions towards net-zero.
The International Energy Agency will be a strategic partner for the Partnership, central to engagement with governments and bringing to bear its expertise on modelling and technology roadmaps.
The initiative is centred on the idea that, while the Paris Agreement lays the groundwork for global cooperation, its focus on national targets will not generate the plans and solutions necessary to “achieve efficient and effective transition strategies for global industries on its own”.
It claims the most important missing piece of the global climate action architecture is an effort by sectors, complementing country-centric strategies with action from global industries to unlock technology and energy transformation, which is “particularly important for heavy emitting industries”.
The coalition will be the delivery mechanism for “Race to Zero Breakthroughs” in hard-to-abate sectors. It said these are specific near-term tipping points for each sector of the global economy in the race to net-zero emissions, being launched by COP26 president Alok Sharma and US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry as part of the Davos Agenda.
In late 2021, the Partnership will aim to showcase net-zero agreement breakthroughs in shipping, aviation, and steel. Within three years, it plans to help companies complete climate action agreements in these sectors as well as trucking, chemicals, cement, and aluminium.
Together, these seven sectors comprise 30% of global emissions. Within five years, the initiative is aiming for there to be “clear shifts in investment patterns across the seven sectors” and will be pursuing net-zero climate action agreements in additional sectors, including potentially food and agriculture.
