INDUSTRIAL MOBILISATION POWERS

Government can activate special legal powers to give essential projects priority for scarce equipment and fund manufacturers to increase production. Such powers are generally used for defence, major emergencies or serious shortages that threaten essential services or strategic industries. They can allow government to obtain supply information, move selected orders ahead of other customers, combine purchases and finance additional factories. For CDR, a war or export restriction could cut supplies of CO₂ compressors and replacement parts, leaving removal plants unable to send carbon for storage. Government might then prioritise replacement deliveries and support alternative manufacturers. It could also seek to expand production for an accelerated national removal programme, for example if its climate plan required substantially more CDR after forests and soils absorbed less carbon than expected. These are possible future CDR applications. Government would need authority under the relevant law and evidence that ordinary purchasing or support could not resolve the shortage quickly enough. Giving orders priority changes who receives existing supplies; financing more production increases the quantity available.

Government must establish what equipment is missing, how much is needed, which projects are affected and why normal purchasing or grants cannot solve the problem in time. A higher CDR target alone does not establish a qualifying emergency or authorise intervention. The relevant law must cover the proposed use. For suppliers, the central question is whether government can require them to fulfil a selected order before contracts they have already signed. Some laws permit binding instructions with defined grounds for refusing; others require the supplier's agreement first. The rules must explain which earlier customers may be delayed, whether the supplier is protected against claims for those delays, what it will be paid and how it can challenge an instruction it cannot fulfil. Factory expansion needs approved funding, customers for its output and the required environmental permits. Authorities must set end dates, protect worker safety and check whether preferential treatment of selected or domestic suppliers breaches competition or trade rules.

These powers can help restore removal operations after a serious supply disruption or accelerate construction when several projects are waiting for the same equipment. A priority order can bring forward a delivery, while public funding or commitments to buy equipment can persuade a manufacturer to add a production line. Government can combine orders from CDR developers and other industries that use the same components, giving manufacturers a stronger reason to expand. For a larger future removal programme, preparing suppliers before demand surges could prevent avoidable shortages. The benefit depends on resolving the actual cause of delay. Equipment support still requires a funded programme or buyers for the resulting removals.

Prioritising one project can delay another industry, including other climate investments. Poor selection can favour established suppliers or finance factories that later lack customers. Requirements to buy domestic products may raise costs or provoke trade disputes. Exceptional powers may remain in use after the shortage has ended. Conversely, abruptly withdrawing support can leave manufacturers unable to recover investments made at government's request. Authorities should assess effects on other customers and explain how ending the measures affects existing orders, funding commitments and supplier obligations.

Evaluation should distinguish delivering equipment sooner to selected buyers from producing more equipment overall. Government should examine delivery times, output, prices, unused production capacity and delays imposed on other customers, alongside public spending. This can show whether the intervention is relieving the shortage or merely moving it elsewhere. Results should guide whether to continue, modify or end the measures. Reviews should also examine whether support is becoming concentrated among a few suppliers and whether labour and environmental requirements are being met.

Manufacturers and logistics providers should explain what they can supply, when they can deliver it and how quickly they could expand. CDR developers and other customers should identify the consequences of delayed or diverted deliveries. Finance officials assess proposed spending and whether new factories would have enough customers. Competition and trade authorities examine whether suppliers are being treated fairly, while labour and environmental authorities check proposed changes to production. Legislatures and auditors scrutinise why the powers are being used and for how long. Suppliers need clear instructions and a way to challenge demands they cannot reasonably meet.

National governments can authorise and use these powers through domestic law. Supranational bodies can do so where member states have granted that authority. Under the EU crisis legislation, the Council activates emergency arrangements and the Commission can coordinate purchasing and use specified powers to address shortages. National agencies may carry out and fund parts of the response. Regional and local authorities can assist, but participation alone does not give them the authority to invoke these national or EU powers.