India Joins First Movers Coalition

Context

Recently, India has joined the First Movers Coalition to decarbonise the heavy industry and long-distance transport sectors.

• They are responsible for 30% of the global emissions.

Key-points

• India, along with Japan and Sweden, has also joined the steering board of the coalition.
• Besides India, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom have also joined the US as government partners to create early markets for clean technologies through policy measures and private sector engagements.

About First Movers Coalition

• First Movers Coalition is a flagship public-private partnership launched by the US and WEF to clean up the most carbon-intensive sectors.
• The coalition also saw 50 new corporate members with a collective market cap of USD 8.5 trillion dollars joining the force.
• Since it was launched at COP26, the First Movers Coalition has brought together global companies with supply chains across carbon-intensive sectors.
• The First Movers Coalition targets sectors, including aluminium, aviation, chemicals, concrete, shipping, steel and trucking, which are responsible for 30 per cent of global emissions – a proportion expected to rise to over 50 per cent by mid-century without urgent progress on clean technology innovation.

Objectives

• The coalition’s members have committed to a percentage from suppliers using near-zero or zero-carbon solutions, despite the premium cost.
• If enough global companies commit a certain percentage of their future purchasing to clean technologies in this decade, this will create a market tipping point that will accelerate their affordability and drive long-term, net-zero transformation across industrial value chains.
• The coalition also announced two new target sectors: 
  • Carbon dioxide removal and aluminium, which join the four existing sectoral pledges (aviation, shipping, steel and trucking) launched at COP26.
• Once the tipping point is reached in the market, the First Movers Coalition will demonstrate that a net- or near-zero transformation across the value chain is not only possible but that it will be no more expensive than the high-emitting alternative.