Aerial view of Echo Park Lake surrounded by neighbourhood with high rise office buildings in background, City Of Los Angeles, California, USA.
California Dreamin’ on Earth Day
Why it’s golden hour for decarbonization in the Golden State.
Last month on Earth Day, RMI, Mission Possible Partnership, and the Bezos Earth Fund gathered project developers, local policy makers, NGOs, and financial institutions in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate progress and take stock of the journey ahead to decarbonize industry and heavy transportation in California.
More than 30 percent of California’s emissions come from heavy industry and heavy transport, including aviation, shipping, and heavy-duty trucks. This pollution not only contributes to smog and poor air quality, it also adds fuel to a warming planet, supercharging the extreme weather events, like wildfires and storms, that have come to plague the Golden State.
The good news is, California is uniquely positioned to decarbonize these sectors. The state has some of the most ambitious environmental regulations in the nation, including targets to achieve carbon neutrality and 100% clean energy by 2045. Project developers in California are taking advantage of this policy environment, with over 60 industrial decarbonization projects announced across the state. However, many announced goals and projects have not reached a final investment decision (FID) or become operational.
That made it ideal for RMI and Mission Possible Partnership, with support from the Bezos Earth Fund, to launch a clean industrial hub in California to provide technical assistance, analysis, and facilitation to directly support 10 first-of-a-kind decarbonization projects, and conduct research and host convenings to enable a broader ecosystem for project developers to be successful. To date, seven out of the ten projects, have reached final investment decision (FID), compared to just 20 percent of proposed projects globally.
At the event, we heard from local leaders who are decarbonizing shipping, ports, and drayage trucking; building first-of-a-kind (FOAK) industrial decarbonization projects; and mobilizing a broader ecosystem of enabling policy, finance, and community engagement to support decarbonization throughout California.
Not long ago, many people believed that heavy industry sectors were impossible to decarbonize … that’s no longer the case, and in fact, you could even say that we are in the beginnings of a new clean industrial revolution, with places like Los Angeles leading the charge.
Decarbonizing shipping, ports, and trucking
California’s ports are critical to the state’s economy, but are also significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution. The Port of Los Angeles is the nation’s busiest container port, moving more than 8 million containers in 2023. Port infrastructure, such as heavy-duty trucks, cargo ships, and material handling equipment, contributes the lion’s share of emissions at ports. As part of the California clean industrial hub, RMI and Mission Possible Partnership worked with the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to map drayage truck routes and identify the most impactful locations to install charging infrastructure to enable the fleets that serve the port to transition to zero-emission trucks.
Decarbonizing these systems is complex: goods must continue moving efficiently, yet their carbon and pollutant footprints must be significantly reduced to meet state climate targets and improve local health outcomes.
At the convening, participants heard from leaders addressing different aspects of ports decarbonization. Paul Gioupis of Zeem Solutions, a fleet management and EV transition service provider for heavy-duty trucks, discussed the potential for electric vehicle (EV) trucking to replace diesel drayage fleets. Today, most drayage trucks run on diesel, making trucking the largest source of emissions at the Port of LA, responsible for 43 percent of its emissions in 2022. Fleets switching to EVs would significantly reduce emissions and pollutants in surrounding communities. Maggie Messerschmidt of C40 Cities illustrated the importance of collaboration across stakeholders, outlining the successful development of green shipping corridors between Los Angeles and Shanghai and Los Angeles and Singapore, coordinating decarbonization across port-to-port routes. Amber Coluso from the Port of Los Angeles’s Air Quality Team emphasized local air quality management strategies targeting reductions in PM2.5 and NOx emissions, such as electrification of cargo handling equipment.
The panelists also discussed several structural barriers that persist. Infrastructure and grid constraints, such as limited transmission capacity and long interconnection timelines, hinder the scaling of zero-emission technologies. High upfront capital costs and unclear return on investment remain barriers for private actors. Additionally, coordinating among port authorities, utilities, municipalities, trucking companies, and regulators presents challenges in aligning timelines and investment decisions.
The entire system needs to be connected. If it’s not, or even one link is missing, you’re just not going to decarbonize. Los Angeles is the epicenter, in our opinion, for electrification in the United States.
Nevertheless, the panelists highlighted notable advancements. Demonstration projects involving zero-emission cargo handling equipment have proven technical feasibility. Green shipping corridor initiatives are moving from concept to implementation, particularly where strong bilateral port agreements exist. Early electric truck deployments are achieving high utilization rates at charging depots, reinforcing the business case for continued investment in electrification.
Our local economies need to be prepared to take advantage of the decarbonization shift that’s happening … the City’s involvement is really critical here and groups, like C40, that have convening power in the community and that work across these stakeholders are really critical.
A lot of times I feel like we’re just in this business of opening the eyes to how collaborative we can get in terms of alignment. And I’m talking about regulatory alignment. I’m talking about things like infrastructure alignment as well.
While historically ports have been part of the problem, today the ports and respective cities managing them are leading on solutions and have become key actors enabling decarbonization projects in the shipping and trucking sectors. California is showing that it’s not only a leader in renewables, but a blueprint for other coastal communities worldwide working to maintain a robust economy built around global trade while increasing the health and prosperity of local residents.
Unlocking first-of-a-kind clean industrial projects
California is an economic powerhouse responsible for more than 14 percent of US GDP. The state boasts a thriving industrial sector: refineries, trucks, airports, ports, and other industries are major drivers of the economy, but are responsible for 80 million metric tons of CO2 per year, making California the third-largest industrial emitter in the nation. Project developers, with more than 60 announced projects, are working to decarbonize California’s industrial sector, which will require moving beyond announcements to implementation. Without a significant increase in operating projects, especially in sectors like cement, fuels, and industrial heat, California risks missing its 2045 net-zero target.
The Greater Los Angeles area, home to roughly half the state’s population, hosts many of the proposed decarbonization projects across heavy industry and heavy transport, from the truck charging terminals discussed above to cement plant decarbonization to sustainable aviation fuel production. At the event, we heard directly from leaders advancing real-world industrial decarbonization projects. Steve Regis, COO of CalPortland, the largest cement and construction materials producer in the western United States, shared the company’s work to reduce emissions from cement production, a sector responsible for 10 percent of industrial CO₂ in California. Josh Stolaroff of Mote, a clean hydrogen start-up based in California, described their approach to producing carbon-negative hydrogen from biomass waste. Mote recently closed a $7 million Series A funding round, and aims to produce 20,000 tons of low-emissions hydrogen annually while removing and sequestering 350,000 tons of CO2 per year. Corey Stewart, of RMI’s aviation team, highlighted the path forward for scaling sustainable aviation fuel and other FOAK fuel technologies, and Felix Hennebert from Rondo Energy discussed thermal battery systems as a solution to electrify industrial heat and reduce both operating costs and emissions for heat-intensive production processes.
Despite their varied technologies and sectors, these innovative companies are encountering a common set of challenges. Complex and often delayed permitting processes can stall even well-prepared projects. FOAK technologies carry perceived commercialization risks, making it difficult to attract private investment at scale. High capital costs, especially when combined with limited revenue certainty, remain a key barrier to moving from pilot to full deployment.
Still, momentum is building. California’s public funding programs, including state grants, federal support through the Inflation Reduction Act, and clean hydrogen hub initiatives, are catalyzing FOAK projects and helping de-risk early investment. The state’s strong regulatory framework, such as clean energy and zero-emission fuel mandates, is sending long-term signals that support early adoption. And some technologies, such as electrified kilns or zero-emission fuels, are beginning to move beyond the lab and into commercial settings.
The clean industrial hubs model plays a key role in overcoming these barriers. By providing technical assistance, convening stakeholders, and supporting project developers as they navigate complex permitting and financing landscapes, the hubs model helps ensure that more FOAK projects move from concept to construction.
We have an incredible moment right now to do new things because [of] these new policies… something that state and federal policymakers understood is that … to do a first-of-a-kind project, you need a market driver, you need a ready technology, and … risk-tolerant capital.
Creating the enabling ecosystem: policy, finance, community engagement
Decarbonization projects don’t exist in isolation. Even the most promising technologies can stall without the right enabling environment. Today, many developers still face the challenge of acting in a vacuum: pushing projects forward without the necessary policy clarity, financial backing, or community trust. To accelerate deployment at scale, there is a need for an ecosystem of actors working in coordination to support industrial decarbonization from multiple angles.
The panelists at the convening spoke about how to mobilize the broader ecosystem of policy, finance, and community engagement. Daniel Adomian of California’s Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank discussed how state financing mechanisms can help derisk capital for early-stage projects.
Carmelita Miller, a leader in energy equity, emphasized the integral role communities play in project development. Carmelita spoke to the need for clean industrial development to have early, sustained collaboration with frontline communities, not as a procedural box-check, but as essential partners in shaping projects that deliver durable, equitable benefits. This approach both creates a win-win situation and ensures projects move forward rather than stall out through opposition.
Sean Knierim of Side Porch, a consulting firm specializing in designing and implementing social impact strategies through cross-sector collaboration, spoke about the importance of grounding decarbonization projects in community partnerships that go beyond compliance to build true shared value.
Michelle Kinman, of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), discussed how LACI’s Transportation Electrification Partnership has fostered public-private collaboration to create an investment blueprint for zero-emission truck charging infrastructure, integrating community input to guide equitable deployment.
Several pain points emerged from their discussion. Fragmented and sometimes misaligned policy signals, across jurisdictions and agencies, can slow or confuse investment decisions. Investors and lenders often view FOAK and community-based projects as risky or unproven, making it difficult to secure financing. And traditional approaches to community engagement remain transactional, too often treating communities as stakeholders to manage rather than partners to empower.
The conversation also surfaced what’s working. Strategic philanthropic funding is being used to fill early-stage gaps: supporting planning, permitting, and ecosystem coordination. Labor and community organizations are stepping in as true project partners, offering critical insights and accelerating local acceptance. And perhaps most importantly, cross-sector collaboration, across finance, government, industry, and civil society, is becoming the norm rather than the exception in leading projects.
We’ve always been excited about clean industrial hubs project; it was not just intended for Los Angeles and Houston, which are very different places, but we talked about Rio, we’ve heard about Shanghai, Singapore, Rotterdam, other places around the world that will have their own models and approaches to risk assessment … [we can] bring what we’ve learned in these clean industrial projects here and learn from the environment and other places.
What’s ahead
Looking out to 2030, hundreds of zero-emissions projects will need to be developed in California to meet state — and global — climate targets. RMI and Mission Possible Partnership’s work creating clean industrial hubs of first-of-a-kind projects and enabling ecosystems to unlock industrial decarbonization at scale is a critical piece of the puzzle.
Industry is the lifeblood of the global economy. It’s the way we make basic building blocks like cement, steel, chemicals and the way we move global commerce around via ships, planes, and trucks. Greening these sectors is as essential as building renewable power and electric vehicles, and can’t be done by governments alone. This initiative, led by Mission Possible Partnership and RMI, is reimagining the whole approach to climate action.
Industrial decarbonization has the potential to do so much more than mitigate climate change. It is an opportunity to clean up air quality, leading to improved health in our neighborhoods, lower healthcare costs, and less strain on medical resources. It can bring tangible benefits to impacted communities like jobs and funding for schools through novel community benefits agreements. And it can help better steward our natural resources, so the beaches, forests, and wildlife so many Californians love are there for future generations.
Learn more about our clean industry efforts in California here.
