Washington Watch: Apple, other big companies take part in new Biden effort with promises on clean energy

The FMC is expected to have more than 25 founding members, including Apple
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other key technology players and other large companies from a range of industries, according to senior Biden administration officials.

The group is intended to help build private-sector demand for clean-energy technology and thereby speed innovation in that area, the officials told reporters.

Together the members have hundreds of billions of dollars in purchasing power, and they will make “demand commitments” related to clean energy
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and innovation, the officials said.

“Through this flagship public-private partnership, companies make purchasing commitments during this decade to send a clear demand signal for commercializing emerging technologies essential to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050,” the White House said in a statement.

“The buyers’ clubs assembled by the FMC will create early market demand for innovations across eight ‘need-to-abate’ sectors — steel, trucking, shipping, aviation, aluminum, concrete, chemicals, and direct air capture — which represent more than one-third of the world’s carbon emissions today, a proportion set to grow in the coming decades,” the statement also said.

Tuesday marks Biden’s second day in Glasgow, the Scottish city where the U.N. is holding its major climate-change summit, the Conference of Parties, or COP26.

His administration has been making a raft of announcements at the event. In a speech on Monday, the president offered U.S. financial help, which will need Congressional backing, for the developing nations that risk being crushed under the effects of climate change.

Now read: Biden is attacking methane by several means after groups say it’s the surest way to keep to 1.5 degrees warming

And see: Biden apologizes to world powers for Trump’s split from Paris climate pact