Submission: Opportunities, actionable solutions, best practices, challenges and barriers, relevant to the Mitigation Work Programme 7th and 8th Dialogues on Mitigating Industrial Emissions

March 2026

Key recommendations for discussion at the dialogue

1. Ensure workers and their representatives and communities are the center-piece of industrial decarbonisation

• Establish measures to accompany workforce and regions with heavy industry ensuring that industrial decarbonisation embeds a just transition approach, combining economic prosperity, rights and inclusion, in line with the COP30 decision on Just Transition. 
• Ensure that roadmaps, strategies and policies take into account livelihoods of affected workers, communities and regions. This includes embedding industrial decarbonisation in larger just transition plans, including strengthening other industrial decent job alternatives, reskilling and retraining programmes, social protection, investment in local infrastructure and economic diversification and other forms of support for impacted territories, workers – whether formal or informal- and communities. Special attention has to be paid to gender considerations and the inclusion of historically marginalised groups, including people with disabilities. 

2. Energy efficiency and sufficiency first

• Sufficiency measures should be prioritized, especially in high energy consumption countries, to minimize demands for steel, cement, etc. Direct electrification should be used whenever possible.
• Circular economy models and energy efficiency measures should be prioritized, e.g. secondary routes production in the steel sector, agroecology practices instead of hydrogen for fertilisers, recycling of transition minerals and industrial inputs etc.

3. Ensure an Inclusive Global Transition including technology transfer & capacity building

• Expand access to renewable-based clean industrial technologies for developing countries through stronger international cooperation, technology transfer, flexible intellectual property frameworks, and capacity-building initiatives.
• Industrial policies and trade measures seeking to reduce emissions should be designed to avoid creating new barriers for developing economies.
• Greater international cooperation, finance, and technology support will be essential to enable equitable participation in the global transition to zero-carbon industry.
• Realities (such as limited access to finance) and needs of MSMEs in particular should be taken into consideration in planning, as in many contexts these enterprises are the backbone of the industry sector.

4. Strengthen Industrial Climate Policies

• Integrate industrial decarbonisation into national climate strategies and develop national industrial policies preventing carbon lock-in.
• Develop clear national sector-specific roadmaps for hard-to-abate industries and other key sectors.

5. Create Demand for Zero-Carbon Industrial Products

• Use green public procurement to create early markets for zero-carbon materials such as steel, cement, and aluminium.
• Encourage private sector procurement commitments for clean industrial products, to foster demand and build markets.

6. Pursue Global Standards for Green Industrial Products

• Build on and further develop ongoing processes to harmonise taxonomies, certification systems, and emissions accounting standards, or to enable interoperability, in a view to enable credible global markets and cross-border trade in zero-carbon industrial goods.
• Local taxonomies can also play an important role

7. Scale Finance for Industrial Transition

• Scale up public finance for renewable energy in developing countries and adopt measures to reduce the cost of capital of renewable energy production assets and of some new technologies.
• Set up dedicated global funds for pilot and demonstration projects with the aim of bringing to maturity new zero-carbon industrial processes in the context of developing and emerging economies.
  • For early stage commercial projects, viability gap funding can be sought to address existing financial barriers, since in many developing countries, the green premium paid for low-carbon products is not yet high enough to close the gap.