August 2025
OK but What Actually Is Climate Tech
From Taylor Swift's carbon footprint to a geoeconomic arms race — what climate tech actually is, and how it became the frontline of 21st-century power.
Angelina Zaitseva
In 2022, Sri Lanka’s government collapsed within just a few months. Fiscal irresponsibility and the lingering effects
Welcome to Garden Research. We bring together epistemic methods, cognitive inquiry, and experimental approaches to carry research beyond academic boundaries. We build for those who want to develop research literacy, learn how to work with knowledge, navigate complexity, and build durable systems of thinking.
February, 11
Hi! This letter is from Angelina, founder of Garden Research.
Here you probably know me more as a researcher, but for the past four years I've been working at the agency Bolder: doing everything from bizdev to project supervision, and mentoring startups as well. At Bolder, we help companies in complex industries — deep tech, climate tech, green tech, bio tech, and others — build communications, bring complex products to market, and develop brands grounded in analytics and sector expertise. Over the past two years, climate tech companies have come to form the majority of our client portfolio.
Virtually every time I tell someone what I do, they picture anything from environmental activism to upcycled fashion, from throwing soup at artworks to memes about the Kardashians' and Taylor Swift's private jets. That is how the public image works: in the average person's mind, climate issues are something between activism, a lifestyle trend, and a progressive agenda for all things good against all things bad. And Donald Trump's recent declarations that climate change is the greatest scientific hoax only reinforce the impression that this industry is a bubble.
On top of that, the sector has experienced a significant drop in investment over the past couple of years. And just a few days ago, COP30 — the 30th UN Climate Change Conference — wrapped up in Belém, Brazil. Among other things, delegates discussed our progress over the ten years since the Paris Agreement. The results are sobering: not a single one of the 45 key indicators for limiting warming to 1.5°C is on track, and CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry have risen by 7% since 2015.
The conclusion practically writes itself: this whole climate tech thing is some kind of scam. And that, incidentally, is extraordinarily convenient for those who want to preserve the status quo.
We live in a world where it is profitable for capital that you discuss Taylor Swift's carbon footprint rather than who will control critical resources in the near future — and how that will affect the energy security and sovereignty of entire nations. Because if you can frame climate tech as "something for leftists and zoomers," you can endlessly sell greenwashing products while avoiding conversations about economic transformation. And while you debate the optimal way to sort recycling within a single household, a vast number of promising technologies that could permanently reshape energy markets remain stuck in laboratories.
In this article, I will try to explain how this market works, what it consists of, and most importantly, how it has already become one of the key drivers of the global economy for the coming decades — and why anyone who wants to understand what is actually happening in the world should care about the climate question.
Here you probably know me more as a researcher, but for the past four years I've been working at the agency Bolder: doing everything from bizdev to project supervision, and mentoring startups as well. At Bolder, we help companies in complex industries — deep tech, climate tech, green tech, bio tech, and others — build communications, bring complex products to market, and develop brands grounded in analytics and sector expertise. Over the past two years, climate tech companies have come to form the majority of our client portfolio.
Virtually every time I tell someone what I do, they picture anything from environmental activism to upcycled fashion, from throwing soup at artworks to memes about the Kardashians' and Taylor Swift's private jets. That is how the public image works: in the average person's mind, climate issues are something between activism, a lifestyle trend, and a progressive agenda for all things good against all things bad. And Donald Trump's recent declarations that climate change is the greatest scientific hoax only reinforce the impression that this industry is a bubble.
On top of that, the sector has experienced a significant drop in investment over the past couple of years. And just a few days ago, COP30 — the 30th UN Climate Change Conference — wrapped up in Belém, Brazil. Among other things, delegates discussed our progress over the ten years since the Paris Agreement. The results are sobering: not a single one of the 45 key indicators for limiting warming to 1.5°C is on track, and CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry have risen by 7% since 2015.
The conclusion practically writes itself: this whole climate tech thing is some kind of scam. And that, incidentally, is extraordinarily convenient for those who want to preserve the status quo.
We live in a world where it is profitable for capital that you discuss Taylor Swift's carbon footprint rather than who will control critical resources in the near future — and how that will affect the energy security and sovereignty of entire nations. Because if you can frame climate tech as "something for leftists and zoomers," you can endlessly sell greenwashing products while avoiding conversations about economic transformation. And while you debate the optimal way to sort recycling within a single household, a vast number of promising technologies that could permanently reshape energy markets remain stuck in laboratories.
In this article, I will try to explain how this market works, what it consists of, and most importantly, how it has already become one of the key drivers of the global economy for the coming decades — and why anyone who wants to understand what is actually happening in the world should care about the climate question.
Climate Change and Climate Tech
To understand what climate tech actually is, we need to cut through the noise around "climate debates" and look at the baseline scientific consensus that shapes the entire market. The question "is climate change happening?" is one that virtually no one seriously disputes anymore — recent years have been the warmest in recorded history. The debate begins at the next step: why it is happening and whether the cause is truly human activity. But over the past few decades, an enormous body of independent data has accumulated on this question.
And that body of data is fairly unambiguous. In 2014, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency surveyed nearly two thousand climate scientists: 90% of surveyed scientists with 10+ peer-reviewed publications explicitly agreed that greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming. And in 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — was published. It is a synthesis of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies, prepared by hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists. The group of researchers who worked on the report also found that the global retreat of glaciers since the 1950s is unprecedented: nearly all of the world's glaciers were retreating simultaneously and in synchrony. If the causes were local (changes in local precipitation, geothermal heat, etc.), glaciers would have retreated asynchronously across different regions. But that is something we have not observed even once in the past 2,000 years.
So what makes climate change so dangerous? A couple of degrees warmer — so what?
Let's break it down pragmatically:
The global energy system runs on 80%+ fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). This causes not only CO₂ emissions and water and air pollution, but also an extreme dependence of countries and economies on extraction and on volatile electricity prices.
Emissions and pollution directly threaten food security: droughts destroy harvests, floods inundate fields, temperature shifts make it impossible to grow traditional crops in regions where they have been cultivated for centuries, and plant pests and diseases spread faster under new climatic conditions.
Climate change directly affects water availability and drinking water supply. Two billion people (a quarter of the world's population!) lack access to clean drinking water. Droughts dry up water sources, while floods spread contamination — including dangerous waterborne diseases.
And the most painful part: all of these effects are distributed unevenly across the planet. Climate disasters push 100 million people per year into poverty, and the hardest hit are the poorest regions of the Global South, despite the fact that they account for far fewer emissions.
And that body of data is fairly unambiguous. In 2014, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency surveyed nearly two thousand climate scientists: 90% of surveyed scientists with 10+ peer-reviewed publications explicitly agreed that greenhouse gases are the primary cause of global warming. And in 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report of the IPCC — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — was published. It is a synthesis of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies, prepared by hundreds of the world's leading climate scientists. The group of researchers who worked on the report also found that the global retreat of glaciers since the 1950s is unprecedented: nearly all of the world's glaciers were retreating simultaneously and in synchrony. If the causes were local (changes in local precipitation, geothermal heat, etc.), glaciers would have retreated asynchronously across different regions. But that is something we have not observed even once in the past 2,000 years.
So what makes climate change so dangerous? A couple of degrees warmer — so what?
Let's break it down pragmatically:
The global energy system runs on 80%+ fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). This causes not only CO₂ emissions and water and air pollution, but also an extreme dependence of countries and economies on extraction and on volatile electricity prices.
Emissions and pollution directly threaten food security: droughts destroy harvests, floods inundate fields, temperature shifts make it impossible to grow traditional crops in regions where they have been cultivated for centuries, and plant pests and diseases spread faster under new climatic conditions.
Climate change directly affects water availability and drinking water supply. Two billion people (a quarter of the world's population!) lack access to clean drinking water. Droughts dry up water sources, while floods spread contamination — including dangerous waterborne diseases.
And the most painful part: all of these effects are distributed unevenly across the planet. Climate disasters push 100 million people per year into poverty, and the hardest hit are the poorest regions of the Global South, despite the fact that they account for far fewer emissions.
Mitigation vs. Adaptation
As a result, the climate tech market emerges as a response to the process of climate change, operating along two strategies:
Mitigation — prevent the problem: reduce CO₂ emissions (as the primary cause of global warming).
Adaptation — survive the problem: help people adjust to changes that are already underway. For example, build flood defenses, early warning systems for cyclones, or develop new wheat varieties that grow in arid climates.
Mitigation — prevent the problem: reduce CO₂ emissions (as the primary cause of global warming).
Adaptation — survive the problem: help people adjust to changes that are already underway. For example, build flood defenses, early warning systems for cyclones, or develop new wheat varieties that grow in arid climates.
The Future Will Be… Ordinary
As a result, the climate tech market emerges as a response to the process of climate change, operating along two strategies:
Mitigation — prevent the problem: reduce CO₂ emissions (as the primary cause of global warming).
Adaptation — survive the problem: help people adjust to changes that are already underway. For example, build flood defenses, early warning systems for cyclones, or develop new wheat varieties that grow in arid climates.
Mitigation — prevent the problem: reduce CO₂ emissions (as the primary cause of global warming).
Adaptation — survive the problem: help people adjust to changes that are already underway. For example, build flood defenses, early warning systems for cyclones, or develop new wheat varieties that grow in arid climates.
Why We Need the Energy Transition
It might seem that renewable energy is solely a climate issue. In reality, even without climate change, we would have plenty of reasons to transition to renewable sources. Below, I will try to explain why — as briefly as possible.
Every society can be described by the energy source it has mastered. Fire, the plough, steam, oil — this is not only a history of technologies, but a sequential increase in per-capita energy access.
Energy is the currency of evolution: how much matter and information we can transform determines how much complexity we can afford. Today, humanity consumes approximately 170,000 terawatt-hours per year, and around 80% of that energy still comes from fossil sources.
What Are the Advantages of Fossil Fuels (Wait, What? Yes!)Fossil fuels have their advantages. And not just advantages — factors that will very likely prevent us from abandoning them entirely anytime soon (yes, really).
Let's examine them:
First: energy density. Gasoline contains 40 times more energy per kilogram than modern lithium-ion batteries at equal weight. This is critical in aviation, for instance: if you want to fly 10,000 km, you either need an aircraft 40 times heavier or you need to refuel 40 times en route.
Second: constant output. A coal or gas power plant can operate 24/7/365, providing a stable load to the grid. This is critical for hospitals, industry, the residential sector — and is also a major advantage in economic modeling.
Third: 150+ years of infrastructure investment. The world has already spent trillions building a distribution network for fossil fuels, and they can be delivered to virtually any point on the globe.
Fourth: flexibility of siting (a consequence of decades of R&D). A gas or coal power plant can be built almost anywhere — on flat land, in mountains, in deserts, and crucially, close to industry.
And finally: fossil fuel is not just energy. It is the base feedstock for everyday goods: fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and synthetic materials.
If you look closely, it turns out that fossil fuels have serious advantages — and there are entire sectors where doing without them will be extremely difficult. Which brings us to a conclusion: we need to use fossil resources wisely, because they are, by definition, finite.
Every society can be described by the energy source it has mastered. Fire, the plough, steam, oil — this is not only a history of technologies, but a sequential increase in per-capita energy access.
Energy is the currency of evolution: how much matter and information we can transform determines how much complexity we can afford. Today, humanity consumes approximately 170,000 terawatt-hours per year, and around 80% of that energy still comes from fossil sources.
What Are the Advantages of Fossil Fuels (Wait, What? Yes!)Fossil fuels have their advantages. And not just advantages — factors that will very likely prevent us from abandoning them entirely anytime soon (yes, really).
Let's examine them:
First: energy density. Gasoline contains 40 times more energy per kilogram than modern lithium-ion batteries at equal weight. This is critical in aviation, for instance: if you want to fly 10,000 km, you either need an aircraft 40 times heavier or you need to refuel 40 times en route.
Second: constant output. A coal or gas power plant can operate 24/7/365, providing a stable load to the grid. This is critical for hospitals, industry, the residential sector — and is also a major advantage in economic modeling.
Third: 150+ years of infrastructure investment. The world has already spent trillions building a distribution network for fossil fuels, and they can be delivered to virtually any point on the globe.
Fourth: flexibility of siting (a consequence of decades of R&D). A gas or coal power plant can be built almost anywhere — on flat land, in mountains, in deserts, and crucially, close to industry.
And finally: fossil fuel is not just energy. It is the base feedstock for everyday goods: fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and synthetic materials.
If you look closely, it turns out that fossil fuels have serious advantages — and there are entire sectors where doing without them will be extremely difficult. Which brings us to a conclusion: we need to use fossil resources wisely, because they are, by definition, finite.
And the Downsides?
Of course there are downsides — otherwise, why would we all be here. Let's dig in:
Fossil resources are distributed across the planet in an extremely uneven manner: oil is concentrated in Middle Eastern countries, which control approximately half of the world's reserves; gas is in Russia, Iran, and Qatar, which share roughly another 50%; coal is in the U.S., Australia, Indonesia, and Russia. This concentration turns energy into a political instrument. The moment markets wobble, dependent countries find themselves in crisis. In 2022–2023, Bangladesh faced massive power outages due to rising prices of liquefied gas, while Pakistan lost its supply when a Swiss company resold its contract to Europe, where prices were higher.
The world today is so interconnected that energy has turned into a domino chain: a single event can trigger an entire cascade. We wrote about this in more detail in our newsletter on polycrisis. Fossil fuel is traded on a global market, and a single geopolitical flare-up — a conflict in the Middle East, sanctions against a major exporter, a harsh winter, or a devastating hurricane — is enough for the crisis to instantly ripple across prices and supply chains worldwide.
Import dependence compounds the situation. In 2023, countries spent approximately one trillion dollars purchasing fossil fuels abroad — money that does not return to their own economies. For importers, this means balance-of-payments deficits, rising debt, and inflation. When energy becomes more expensive, everything becomes more expensive: food, transport, housing, services. Ultimately, energy dependence becomes a macroeconomic risk that undermines the stability of entire nations.
[interactive chart screenshot]
This chart provides a compressed view of countries' energy resilience. The horizontal axis shows the degree to which a country depends on energy imports (the share of imported energy resources relative to GDP). The vertical axis shows how volatile domestic energy prices are. The size of the circle represents the economy's energy efficiency: the smaller the circle, the less energy is spent per unit of GDP. The upper-right quadrant contains countries with high import dependence and unstable prices — i.e., the most vulnerable. The lower-left quadrant contains states with low dependence, predictable prices, and, frequently, higher energy efficiency.
Fossil resources are distributed across the planet in an extremely uneven manner: oil is concentrated in Middle Eastern countries, which control approximately half of the world's reserves; gas is in Russia, Iran, and Qatar, which share roughly another 50%; coal is in the U.S., Australia, Indonesia, and Russia. This concentration turns energy into a political instrument. The moment markets wobble, dependent countries find themselves in crisis. In 2022–2023, Bangladesh faced massive power outages due to rising prices of liquefied gas, while Pakistan lost its supply when a Swiss company resold its contract to Europe, where prices were higher.
The world today is so interconnected that energy has turned into a domino chain: a single event can trigger an entire cascade. We wrote about this in more detail in our newsletter on polycrisis. Fossil fuel is traded on a global market, and a single geopolitical flare-up — a conflict in the Middle East, sanctions against a major exporter, a harsh winter, or a devastating hurricane — is enough for the crisis to instantly ripple across prices and supply chains worldwide.
Import dependence compounds the situation. In 2023, countries spent approximately one trillion dollars purchasing fossil fuels abroad — money that does not return to their own economies. For importers, this means balance-of-payments deficits, rising debt, and inflation. When energy becomes more expensive, everything becomes more expensive: food, transport, housing, services. Ultimately, energy dependence becomes a macroeconomic risk that undermines the stability of entire nations.
[interactive chart screenshot]
This chart provides a compressed view of countries' energy resilience. The horizontal axis shows the degree to which a country depends on energy imports (the share of imported energy resources relative to GDP). The vertical axis shows how volatile domestic energy prices are. The size of the circle represents the economy's energy efficiency: the smaller the circle, the less energy is spent per unit of GDP. The upper-right quadrant contains countries with high import dependence and unstable prices — i.e., the most vulnerable. The lower-left quadrant contains states with low dependence, predictable prices, and, frequently, higher energy efficiency.
What the Climate Tech Market Consists Of
Let's unpack the relationship between the energy market and the climate tech market. Electricity — and energy in general — is a commodity. It has demand, supply, exchange-traded prices, delivery infrastructure, and its own rules of the game.
Climate tech begins where technologies emerge that allow all of this to work differently: transitioning from fossil to renewable sources, managing variable generation, storing energy, and adapting infrastructure to the new climatic reality. This is precisely why the state of climate tech is directly tied to the state of the energy market: as demand for energy from renewable sources grows, so does demand for panels, turbines, batteries, software, sensors, and management systems.
But climate tech is not only about renewable energy. It also encompasses carbon capture and storage — a set of technologies that capture CO₂ from industrial emissions or ambient air — as well as sustainable agriculture — an approach to agricultural production that minimizes carbon footprint and soil depletion, based on precision farming technologies, closed-loop water cycles, and reduced dependence on chemical fertilizers.
Another structural confusion: climate tech is frequently conflated with green tech and clean tech. Green tech is a broad concept that includes everything from waste recycling and water purification to biodiversity conservation. Clean tech, meanwhile, focuses on making not only new and green systems, but also existing ones, more energy-efficient.
Ultimately, climate tech is not a separate market "about the environment" — it is an extension of the good old energy market: infrastructure, equipment, software, engineering, and deep scientific solutions that make the transition to a new energy system possible.
Climate tech begins where technologies emerge that allow all of this to work differently: transitioning from fossil to renewable sources, managing variable generation, storing energy, and adapting infrastructure to the new climatic reality. This is precisely why the state of climate tech is directly tied to the state of the energy market: as demand for energy from renewable sources grows, so does demand for panels, turbines, batteries, software, sensors, and management systems.
But climate tech is not only about renewable energy. It also encompasses carbon capture and storage — a set of technologies that capture CO₂ from industrial emissions or ambient air — as well as sustainable agriculture — an approach to agricultural production that minimizes carbon footprint and soil depletion, based on precision farming technologies, closed-loop water cycles, and reduced dependence on chemical fertilizers.
Another structural confusion: climate tech is frequently conflated with green tech and clean tech. Green tech is a broad concept that includes everything from waste recycling and water purification to biodiversity conservation. Clean tech, meanwhile, focuses on making not only new and green systems, but also existing ones, more energy-efficient.
Ultimately, climate tech is not a separate market "about the environment" — it is an extension of the good old energy market: infrastructure, equipment, software, engineering, and deep scientific solutions that make the transition to a new energy system possible.
How Renewable Sources Shape a Country's Energy Portfolio
To understand what renewable energy sources are, we need to briefly return to high school physics. Energy on Earth circulates between several fundamental "reservoirs": solar radiation, the Earth's internal heat, gravity, and the energy of chemical or nuclear bonds. Everything we call "energy" is merely a way of reaching one of these reservoirs and converting it into electricity or heat.
These four sources underpin six verticals from which countries assemble their energy portfolios: solar, wind, and biomass; geothermal (Earth's heat); hydropower (gravity); the chemical energy of fossil fuels; and nuclear energy. Each vertical has its own profile: solar and wind generation is cheap but variable; geothermal is stable but so far accessible in few locations; hydropower is powerful but requires dams; oil and gas are energy-dense and easy to transport; and nuclear energy delivers dense and predictable baseload capacity, though it requires complex infrastructure and particular attention to safety.
And here is the crucial point: a country's energy portfolio is always a balance between physics, geography, economics, and politics. You cannot simply "decide" to use solar power if the country is located in a zone of low insolation. You cannot rely on wind if generation fluctuates so heavily that the grid cannot cope without large-scale storage systems. Renewable sources are therefore not merely an "eco-friendly choice" — they are the result of a complex assessment: what is cheap, what is stable, what is available right here, and what can be scaled right now.
As a result, every country assembles its own unique energy mix: cheap but variable solar energy requires batteries; wind requires a flexible grid; and nuclear energy requires political will and engineering competencies. Renewable sources become part of the portfolio because, for a given economy, they represent the optimal combination of resources, risk, cost, and security.
And it is from this logic that climate tech grows: all the equipment, software, infrastructure, and engineering solutions that enable countries to restructure their portfolios toward more resilient and less carbon-intensive systems.
These four sources underpin six verticals from which countries assemble their energy portfolios: solar, wind, and biomass; geothermal (Earth's heat); hydropower (gravity); the chemical energy of fossil fuels; and nuclear energy. Each vertical has its own profile: solar and wind generation is cheap but variable; geothermal is stable but so far accessible in few locations; hydropower is powerful but requires dams; oil and gas are energy-dense and easy to transport; and nuclear energy delivers dense and predictable baseload capacity, though it requires complex infrastructure and particular attention to safety.
And here is the crucial point: a country's energy portfolio is always a balance between physics, geography, economics, and politics. You cannot simply "decide" to use solar power if the country is located in a zone of low insolation. You cannot rely on wind if generation fluctuates so heavily that the grid cannot cope without large-scale storage systems. Renewable sources are therefore not merely an "eco-friendly choice" — they are the result of a complex assessment: what is cheap, what is stable, what is available right here, and what can be scaled right now.
As a result, every country assembles its own unique energy mix: cheap but variable solar energy requires batteries; wind requires a flexible grid; and nuclear energy requires political will and engineering competencies. Renewable sources become part of the portfolio because, for a given economy, they represent the optimal combination of resources, risk, cost, and security.
And it is from this logic that climate tech grows: all the equipment, software, infrastructure, and engineering solutions that enable countries to restructure their portfolios toward more resilient and less carbon-intensive systems.
TL;DV
If we put all of this together, it becomes clear: the question is not only — and not primarily — about the cleanliness and "greenness" of energy. The strategic resilience of an energy system is composed of multiple factors: energy density, output stability, geographic dependence, capital expenditure, ecosystem impact, and supply chain autonomy. Uranium delivers energy millions of times denser than wind, but solar and wind are infinite and safe. Geothermal is stable but expensive; solar energy is cheap but intermittent. Renewable sources require large upfront investments but are nearly immune to commodity crises. And in the final analysis, energy security is not only a question of technology — it is a question of the strategic security of nations and communities.
What Is Happening with Climate Tech Right Now
In September, Donald Trump criticized the scientific consensus on climate change. His most striking remarks came at the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2025, where he declared: "First they scared us with global cooling, then global warming, now climate change. This is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the world."
Moreover, if we look at the investment dynamics, we see a sustained decline from the 2021–2022 peak, when the sector attracted nearly $100 billion. In 2024, total venture and growth investments fell to $37.8 billion — marking the third consecutive year of decline, with a 21.7% drop compared to 2023.
How did we get here?
Moreover, if we look at the investment dynamics, we see a sustained decline from the 2021–2022 peak, when the sector attracted nearly $100 billion. In 2024, total venture and growth investments fell to $37.8 billion — marking the third consecutive year of decline, with a 21.7% drop compared to 2023.
How did we get here?
Where Is This All Heading
Despite the fact that the conclusion about scientists' duplicity is about as brilliant as the link between autism and paracetamol, Trump can be understood. The Western hemisphere is hopelessly behind China in the manufacturing of equipment for the energy transition. China dominates across all renewable energy segments: it accounts for just under half (44%) of global investment in renewable energy and nearly two-thirds of new solar installations in 2025. This was preceded by decades of investment in R&D and industry, and as a result, competitors' investments are being devalued: if in the 2000s–2010s this was shuttering startups, today it is bringing down major companies in the U.S. and Europe.
Now, as China's market share grows (up to 70% of solar and wind energy and 90% of equipment), the U.S. sees a risk of geoeconomic defeat. This is why Trump is attempting to slow the "green agenda" and restrict Chinese exports, banking on the overheating of China's domestic market.
Another problem that climate tech faces is the so-called missing middle: a massive gap between the availability of venture capital at early stages and the presence of infrastructure financing at later stages. From 2017 to 2022, out of $270 billion in private capital directed toward clean energy, the distribution was imbalanced: only 20% went to late and growth stages, 43% to early rounds, and 37% to the deployment of already established technologies. This means there is a surplus of capital for funding R&D and infrastructure, but a deficit for the transitional phase from prototype to commercial scale.
Why does this happen? Climate technologies are, for the most part, deep tech and hardware companies that require 5–6 times more capital at early stages than, say, fintech or quantum computing. Particularly capital-intensive sectors (hydrogen, carbon technologies, batteries) need more than $25 million at the early stage alone. However, venture investors who fund Seed and Series A typically cannot provide the $50–200 million required for Series B (building a pilot plant, scaling production). This amount is too large for a typical VC fund, yet too small and too risky for major infrastructure investors, who prefer to finance ready-made projects with guaranteed returns rather than technologies with uncertain demand.
The second problem is high risk and long commercialization timelines. The average period from Series A to Series D for climate tech is 7 years, during which a company must build a pilot plant or production facility, prove technical scalability, find commercial clients, and sign contracts. And investors, in an environment of high interest rates, are unwilling to wait 7 years for an exit.
And the third enormous problem: in 2025, AI absorbs 53% of global venture capital. Climate technologies compete for the attention and capital of VC funds but lose out, because AI companies demonstrate results faster, have a more predictable path to profitability, and require less capital.
As a result, innovative climate technologies get stuck in labs and pilots. Many effective solutions for reducing emissions never reach commercial scale.
A complete halt to the energy transition is impossible — the question is not whether it will happen, but who will profit from it. Investor panic and the U.S.'s hardline moves are not a rejection of the green course. They are the opening of a geoeconomic confrontation for control over the energy system of the twenty-first century.
[interactive chart screenshot]
This chart shows how climate tech investments have shifted from 2015 to 2025 and where exactly capital has been flowing. The curves show the total volume of investment across different market areas: mitigation, adaptation, and software (in $B, left X-axis scale). The straight lines represent median check sizes at early stages (from Seed to Series A) and average project finance deal size (in $M, right X-axis scale). Both metrics are rising, but large project deals are increasing especially sharply — indicating that the market is maturing, which means that a major flow of capital is beginning to enter mature, established technologies.
Now, as China's market share grows (up to 70% of solar and wind energy and 90% of equipment), the U.S. sees a risk of geoeconomic defeat. This is why Trump is attempting to slow the "green agenda" and restrict Chinese exports, banking on the overheating of China's domestic market.
Another problem that climate tech faces is the so-called missing middle: a massive gap between the availability of venture capital at early stages and the presence of infrastructure financing at later stages. From 2017 to 2022, out of $270 billion in private capital directed toward clean energy, the distribution was imbalanced: only 20% went to late and growth stages, 43% to early rounds, and 37% to the deployment of already established technologies. This means there is a surplus of capital for funding R&D and infrastructure, but a deficit for the transitional phase from prototype to commercial scale.
Why does this happen? Climate technologies are, for the most part, deep tech and hardware companies that require 5–6 times more capital at early stages than, say, fintech or quantum computing. Particularly capital-intensive sectors (hydrogen, carbon technologies, batteries) need more than $25 million at the early stage alone. However, venture investors who fund Seed and Series A typically cannot provide the $50–200 million required for Series B (building a pilot plant, scaling production). This amount is too large for a typical VC fund, yet too small and too risky for major infrastructure investors, who prefer to finance ready-made projects with guaranteed returns rather than technologies with uncertain demand.
The second problem is high risk and long commercialization timelines. The average period from Series A to Series D for climate tech is 7 years, during which a company must build a pilot plant or production facility, prove technical scalability, find commercial clients, and sign contracts. And investors, in an environment of high interest rates, are unwilling to wait 7 years for an exit.
And the third enormous problem: in 2025, AI absorbs 53% of global venture capital. Climate technologies compete for the attention and capital of VC funds but lose out, because AI companies demonstrate results faster, have a more predictable path to profitability, and require less capital.
As a result, innovative climate technologies get stuck in labs and pilots. Many effective solutions for reducing emissions never reach commercial scale.
A complete halt to the energy transition is impossible — the question is not whether it will happen, but who will profit from it. Investor panic and the U.S.'s hardline moves are not a rejection of the green course. They are the opening of a geoeconomic confrontation for control over the energy system of the twenty-first century.
[interactive chart screenshot]
This chart shows how climate tech investments have shifted from 2015 to 2025 and where exactly capital has been flowing. The curves show the total volume of investment across different market areas: mitigation, adaptation, and software (in $B, left X-axis scale). The straight lines represent median check sizes at early stages (from Seed to Series A) and average project finance deal size (in $M, right X-axis scale). Both metrics are rising, but large project deals are increasing especially sharply — indicating that the market is maturing, which means that a major flow of capital is beginning to enter mature, established technologies.
How Countries Are Adapting to What Is Happening
The world is attempting to respond to China's growing influence in green energy along two paths. The first is to bring manufacturing closer to home: develop domestic factories, introduce tariffs to protect local producers, sign long-term contracts for material supply, and find new sources of raw materials outside China. The second is to accelerate the development of homegrown technologies: provide companies with subsidies and tax incentives, invest in research and the implementation of new solutions, simplify permits for the construction of power grids and factories, and train specialists. All of this is needed to reduce dependence on China and make manufacturing in Europe and the U.S. competitive once again.
Europe is one of the most striking examples of this strategy. It is building its own factories for the production of solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps (under the Green Deal and the NZIA act), imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and investing €300 billion through the Global Gateway program to strengthen infrastructure and ties with other regions. In parallel, major programs for the development of battery and hydrogen technologies are being launched, and funds worth billions of euros are being created that help not only invent but also manufacture these technologies at industrial scale.
A separate track is nuclear energy — and this is where it becomes apparent just how differently European countries envision the resilience of their energy systems. While southern and central Europe are betting on the scaling of solar, wind, and batteries, the Scandinavian countries follow a different logic: they need maximally stable, predictable, and independent baseload capacity that depends neither on weather nor on imported fuel. Sweden is therefore returning nuclear power to the center of its strategy, planning to build two new reactors by 2035 and another ten by 2045. Finland, following the launch of Olkiluoto-3, is expanding regulations for the rapid development of nuclear and even fusion technologies. Norway and Denmark are more cautious for now, but are also beginning to prepare infrastructure for small modular reactors.
Climate tech is not a "green agenda" and not a culture war. It is a fundamental shift in the global economy: the restructuring of energy, industry, and supply chains — one for which nations and corporations are already competing.
And if all of this has seemed to you until now like something distant, "progressive," or not worth your attention, perhaps it is time to reconsider your vantage point.
Europe is one of the most striking examples of this strategy. It is building its own factories for the production of solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps (under the Green Deal and the NZIA act), imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, and investing €300 billion through the Global Gateway program to strengthen infrastructure and ties with other regions. In parallel, major programs for the development of battery and hydrogen technologies are being launched, and funds worth billions of euros are being created that help not only invent but also manufacture these technologies at industrial scale.
A separate track is nuclear energy — and this is where it becomes apparent just how differently European countries envision the resilience of their energy systems. While southern and central Europe are betting on the scaling of solar, wind, and batteries, the Scandinavian countries follow a different logic: they need maximally stable, predictable, and independent baseload capacity that depends neither on weather nor on imported fuel. Sweden is therefore returning nuclear power to the center of its strategy, planning to build two new reactors by 2035 and another ten by 2045. Finland, following the launch of Olkiluoto-3, is expanding regulations for the rapid development of nuclear and even fusion technologies. Norway and Denmark are more cautious for now, but are also beginning to prepare infrastructure for small modular reactors.
Climate tech is not a "green agenda" and not a culture war. It is a fundamental shift in the global economy: the restructuring of energy, industry, and supply chains — one for which nations and corporations are already competing.
And if all of this has seemed to you until now like something distant, "progressive," or not worth your attention, perhaps it is time to reconsider your vantage point.
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