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Whether they can continue to do so depends on how long the green freeze lasts.
This story is part of a Heatmap series on the “green freeze” under Trump.
By now I’ve come to expect the responses. “We’re continuing to assess the situation and aren’t able to speak on it at this time.” “We are not able to provide comment on this matter.” Oftentimes, all I’ll receive is a Gmail prompt to an unanswered email: Sent 9 days ago. Follow up?
This week, my colleagues and I are covering the “green freeze,” an economy-wide trend of canceled clean energy projects, a retreat from climate tech investments, and a tightening of purse strings perhaps best epitomized by Breakthrough Energy’s pullback from grantmaking and policy advocacy. I aimed to look more closely at how nonprofits are navigating the new political and economic landscape — with climate no longer a key policy focus of the White House, would related causes lose their appeal to donors? Or would the opposite be true: Given the federal funding gap, would philanthropy surge to fill the vacuum? Would it even be prudent to do so?
“In my experience, when the government takes a step back from a particular impact area — and climate is no different — often philanthropists end up leaning in,” Amy Duffuor, a co-founder and partner at Azolla Ventures, told me. Azolla invests in climate tech start-ups using both traditional venture capital and catalytic capital, the latter of which comes primarily from philanthropists. But for many organizations, especially at the grassroots level or in the environmental justice space, it might not be that simple.
Talking about donors is always delicate and awkward, but I was still surprised by how closed-lipped local and national nonprofits became when I started asking these questions. Many groups that have spoken candidly with Heatmap News in the past declined to talk to me on the topic, even on background. One media relations manager for a conservation organization that receives federal grants delicately implied, while turning down my request for comment, that no one wants to stick their neck out when there’s a climate witch-hunt going on.
“Nonprofits have to be really conscious of where their support comes from and how they protect that,” Cyrus Wadia, the CEO of Activate, a nonprofit that offers fellowship support for early-stage science entrepreneurs looking to launch climate start-ups, told me when I explained what I was seeing.
He’s right that the wariness is understandable. The Trump administration is attempting to claw back some $20 billion in funds awarded to climate nonprofits under President Joe Biden, including hundreds of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, many of which were earmarked for local environmental justice nonprofits. A number of these nonprofits are, as a result, facing unexpected funding shortfalls, forcing them to consider cuts to staff and programs in the weeks and months ahead. “If this lasts much longer … then we’re going to start seeing more organizations saying this program and that program have to shut down, they’re having to reduce capacity because they can’t make payroll, or they’re closing their doors,” Rick Cohen, the chief communications officer for the National Council of Nonprofits, recently told The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
There is a sense among some in the nonprofit space that the hesitation among donors might be more of a reassessment than an actual freeze. “There is definitely a ‘pause and wait and see and figure out our strategy and maybe start over’ moment that I think a couple of these foundations are having,” Lara Pierpoint, the managing director of Trellis Climate — a 501(c)(3) that helps philanthropists, donors, and foundations invest in climate opportunities that wouldn’t go forward without philanthropic support — told me. A policy director for a national policymaking and advocacy group similarly suggested to me that the election of Trump caught some of their donors flat-footed, adding that they “didn’t have strategies ready to go.”
That doesn’t necessarily indicate a broader trend. “The good news is that we aren’t seeing a huge amount of change just yet among our donor set,” she told me. “I think our donor set tends to be folks who are already very focused on climate,” she went on. “They are not only not afraid of the word ‘climate,’ but I think they really see the need to focus on it, particularly given what’s going on.”
She did note, however, that it’s still early, and that there are two main headwinds she and her peers are facing. “Some of the donors that we’ve spoken to have said, ‘Hey, we can’t really talk right now or commit to anything because we’re doing a wholesale reevaluation of our portfolio and how we approach giving,’” she said. Additionally, philanthropists who think of themselves more as investors might have questions about how viable their investments will be, given what’s happening with both federal priorities and the gyrating economy.
As my colleague Katie Brigham has reported, climate tech investment had already started to slow down from the frothy days of the early Biden administration; some companies had started to pivot away from promoting the clean, green climate perks of their business models even before Trump took office. (Bloomberg has labeled this semantic game “greenhushing”; the general wisdom is, “it’s still a great time to start a climate startup. Just don’t call it a climate startup.”) Anxieties about the economy can, as a rule, also impact the giving patterns of donors.
“At the end of the day, for very good reasons, philanthropists want to invest in projects and ideas that are likely to be successful and go forward and do the things they are meant to do,” Pierpoint said. “And all of that is under threat right now because climate tech is hard, it’s expensive, it’s competing with fossil fuels, and counting out government support and tax credits, the picture is daunting.”
Others were similarly cautiously optimistic about the days ahead. “There’s a gap, and philanthropy is often well-suited to close gaps,” said Duffuor, the partner at Azolla Ventures. (Both Azolla Ventures and Trellis Climate are part of Prime Coalition, a nonprofit focused on climate financing.)
Like Pierpoint, Duffuor expects to see a “doubling down” by philanthropists who are motivated by climate. Donors who were more on the cusp to begin with — who saw climate investment as en vogue, or were more driven by financial returns — might back away, she agreed. But it seems unlikely that people who genuinely believe in climate causes will be dissuaded by who’s in the White House. “I think people are waiting to see where the gaps are most effective,” she said.
Wadia, the CEO of the venture capital firm Activate, who spoke with me from the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, agreed that while the language around giving may change, he is still seeing a “momentum for innovation.”
“If we all just step back, what are we really trying to do?” he said, speaking of nonprofits, philanthropists, and start-ups alike. “Everybody might have a different version of how we do it, but we’re all working towards trying to make the planet a better place for people — for all species on this planet. There’s a general consensus that’s a good thing.”
The nonprofit sector is large and diverse, and the impacts of the political and economic moment will not be felt equally. Local environmental justice nonprofits that relied on federal grants will undoubtedly be worse off than the better-insulated climate financing organizations like Activate, although the turbulence at Breakthrough suggests that even the deepest of pockets can still close to climate causes. (Tellingly, companies funded by Breakthrough’s investment arm, Breakthrough Ventures, do not appear to be affected.) The tension and anxiety aren’t likely to break soon; uncertainty and fear remain pervasive.
If anything can be counted on, though, it’s that climate causes — whether local, national, community-focused, or innovation-related — will need their donors more than ever. The people I spoke with expect them to step up. But is that even a good thing?
“It’s not just the immediate impact — the question mark around grant funding and things like that,” Pierpoint of Trellis Climate told me. “It’s also the question of, is this, in the long term, going to reduce trust in the federal government in a way that lowers investment when folks are trying to leverage dollars?” She paused. “I think it would be bluntly catastrophic for climate development if we get into that world.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Activate is a nonprofit, not a venture capital firm.
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A conservation with George Povall of All Our Energy
Today’s chat is with George Povall, director of the All Our Energy pro-offshore wind environmental group. Povall – who told me he was inspired to be an environmentalist by the film Avatar – has for more than a decade been a key organizer on the ground in the Long Island area for supporting offshore wind development. But these days he spends a lot more time fighting renewables disinformation, going so far as to travel the community trying to re-educate people about this technology in light of the loud activism against it.
After the news dropped that states are suing to undo the Trump executive order against offshore wind, I wanted to chat with Povell about what environmentalists should do to combat the anti-renewables movement and whether there’s still any path forward for the industry he’s spent nearly a decade working to build as an activist.
The following conversation transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
Okay so first of all, what made you become a pro-wind environmental activist?
This all goes back to maybe 15 years ago. I’ve always been environmentally minded. I’m 55 years old and not from the nonprofit sector. I like everybody else was living my normal life and maybe with some naivete thought that if things were good and economical and made sense and worked better than what we were doing in the past, we’d move on from that. But time kept creeping along and we went through the 1990s and 2000s and then I began to become more aware. I just thought people who knew more than I did would do something about this.
Surprisingly I look back and a movie that really motivated me to do what I’m doing is Avatar. They’re destroying the planet for the materials – exactly what we’re seeing now. We’re seeing it more than ever, with someone who is almost like a comic book villain now wanting to strip-mine the sea bed. I wonder what the anti-offshore wind people have to say about that.
It’s been surprising to me. We had always known there was going to be opposition to offshore wind, and disinformation coming. We had always tried to get out ahead of it but we were always unsuccessful in getting funding to deal with that.
Did the developers get ahead of it?
No. I think the developers got a lot of bad advice from the public relations firms they were using.
We kept telling them, please just tell the people what’s going on. I can see how they got into that position because people were asking questions about things that weren’t decided yet. But instead of saying they didn’t know and it wasn’t decided yet, they refused to admit they didn’t know something, even if that was the case. It engendered a lot of distrust in the communities that opponents were able to seize on quite easily.
I know from someone who has done campaigns of community organizing before, you just tell people what it is and what you know. It engenders trust. Unfortunately it didn’t go that way and I think a big part of that is they should’ve been more ready for people who were not willing to accept any answer as acceptable.
It feels to me like offshore wind has now become a wedge issue. A culture war issue. And they got people who frankly should’ve known better to listen to some of the least reliable people in the community throwing out claims that were ridiculous. And they overwhelmed a lot of people with half truths, misinformation. People couldn’t keep up.
What is the environmental movement actually doing now to address what is not just a policy problem but a cultural problem?
Well, that’s a great question and we have been trying to turn it around for a while. Though we have some resources, it is really hard to deprogram people. It’s very hard. I have spoken to people who came to me and said, I haven’t made up my mind. I am just looking for the right information. And when I gave it to them, they told me I was a “climate cult zealot.” That’s what everybody in the environmental movement is to them.
We need to really just bring in the people who support this stuff. It’s a basic concept but unfortunately we’ve never had the capacity to do that kind of thing. It’s something bigger organizations were doing, but they don’t have capacity for it now either. So it’s on us to just find the things that aren’t being done and do them. It’s about building coalitions.
It’s about starting from zero. Having offshore wind 101 information sessions and getting other organizations involved and getting their people educated. It can’t be a single process doing that. If the general public knew how a wind turbine works, if the average person on the street knew how it works, they’d laugh at people when they throw disinformation at them – but they don’t know it’s nonsense yet.
The company managed to put a positive spin on tariffs.
The residential solar company Sunrun is, like much of the rest of the clean energy business, getting hit by tariffs. The company told investors in its first quarter earnings report Tuesday that about half its supply of solar modules comes from overseas, and thus is subject to import taxes. It’s trying to secure more modules domestically “as availability increases,” Sunrun said, but “costs are higher and availability limited near-term.”
“We do not directly import any solar equipment from China, although producers in China are important for various upstream components used by our suppliers,” Sunrun chief executive Mary Powell said on the call, indicating that having an entirely-China-free supply chain is likely impossible in the renewable energy industry.
Hardware makes up about a third of the company’s costs, according to Powell. “This cost will increase from tariffs,” she said, although some advance purchasing done before the end of last year will help mitigate that. All told, tariffs could lower the company’s cash generation by $100 million to $200 million, chief financial officer Danny Abajian said.
But — and here’s where things get interesting — the company also offered a positive spin on tariffs.
In a slide presentation to investors, the company said that “sustained, severe tariffs may drive the country to a recession.” Sounds bad, right?
But no, not for Sunrun. A recession could mean “lower long term interest rates,” which, since the company relies heavily on securitizing solar leases and benefits from lower interest rates, could round in the company’s favor.
In its annual report released in February, the company mentioned that “higher rates increase our cost of capital and decrease the amount of capital available to us to finance the deployment of new solar energy systems.” On Wednesday, the company estimated that a 10% tariff, which is the baseline rate in the Trump “Liberation Day” tariffs, could be offset with a half percentage point decline in the company’s cost of capital, although it didn’t provide any further details behind the calculation.
Even in the absence of interest rate relief, a recession could still be okay for Sunrun.
“Historically, recessions have driven more demand for our products,” the company said in its presentation, arguing that because their solar systems offer savings compared to utility rates, they become more attractive when households get more money conscious.
Sunrun shares are up almost 10% today, as the company showed more growth than expected.
For what it’s worth, the much-ballyhooed decline in long-term interest rates as a result of Trump’s tariffs hasn’t actually happened, at least not yet. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday decided to keep the federal funds rate at 4.5%, the third time in a row the board of governors have chosen to maintain the status quo. The yield on 10-year treasuries, often used as a benchmark for interest rates, is up slightly since “Liberation Day” on April 2 and sits today at 4.34%, compared to 4.19% before Trump’s tariffs announcements.
On solar growth, Hornsea 4, and Rivian deliveries
Current conditions: The first cicada broods have begun to emerge in the Southeast as soil temperatures hit 64 degrees Fahrenheit• Hail and even snow are possible across parts of Spain today • Forecasters have identified a risk zone for tropical storm development in the Atlantic basin, with potential for the first named storm of the year to form by mid-May.
1. Global solar market expected to slow in 2025
The global solar market is expected to grow only 10% in 2025, down from 33% growth in 2024 and 87% growth in 2023, according to a new report by SolarPower Europe. The firm’s “most realistic scenario” accounts for the natural slowdown in development after a boom caused by high energy prices in 2022 and 2023, as well as the “uneven distribution of solar market growth” worldwide, with China accounting for 55% of the market share, lending to the dip in overall solar as it implements reforms this summer in how its renewables are priced and traded.
Speaking at the opening of the Intersolar 2025 conference in Munich on Wednesday, Abigail Ross Hopper, the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, echoed some of the uncertainty expressed in SolarPower Europe’s report. “I don’t think any of us could be in this business if we weren’t optimistic,” she said, adding, “I think we’re going to weather through this storm, but it is going to be a bit rocky for a few years.” SolarPower Europe’s report, meanwhile, anticipates “likely” growth from 2 terawatts of global installed solar capacity at the end of 2024 to 7.1 terawatts of total installed capacity by 2030, which would meet “nearly two-thirds of the 11 terawatt renewable energy target set at COP28.” Under ideal conditions, solar could even quadruple capacity to more than 8 terawatts by the decade’s end. Read the full report here.
2. Orsted cancels 2.4-gigawatt offshore wind project in the UK, citing rising costs
The Danish energy company Orsted announced this week that it is canceling its Hornsea 4 offshore wind project in the UK due to rising supply chain costs and other “adverse macroeconomic developments,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Hornsea 4 was expected to become one of the biggest offshore wind farms in the world, with a capacity of 2.4 gigawatts once it was completed. (Equinor’s recently paused Empire Wind I project, south of New York’s Long Island, would have had an 810-megawatt capacity by comparison.)
Orsted warned it would take a hit from the cancellation, with breakaway costs estimated to be between $533 million and $685 million. Nevertheless, “Orsted said the project no longer made economic sense, even with a contract to sell power at government-guaranteed prices for 15 years,” Bloomberg writes. Significantly, the canceled project will also hurt the UK’s efforts to add more renewables to its power grid.
3. ICYMI: Rivian lowered its delivery estimate by as much as 15% due to tariffs
Rivian beat Wall Street’s first quarter estimates, the automaker shared in its earnings letter to investors on Tuesday, but lowered its target for 2025 vehicle deliveries on account of tariffs, CNBC reports. Though the company builds all its electric vehicles in Illinois, “The current global economic landscape presents significant uncertainty, particularly regarding evolving trade regulation, policies, tariffs, and the overall impact these items may have on consumer sentiment and demand,” Rivian said by way of explanation. While it previously estimated it would deliver between 46,000 and 51,000 units in 2025, the revised outlook anticipates 40,000 to 46,000 deliveries. Last year, the company delivered just over 51,500 vehicles, Inside EVs notes.
The company also said it expects to take on “a couple thousand dollars” in additional expenses per vehicle due to the trade policies, though founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe said it’s not planning to increase the $45,000 starting price of the R2 as a result. Despite the continued uncertainty, Rivian said it still expects to achieve a “modest positive gross profit” in 2025.
4. Republicans sneak sale of public lands into reconciliation bill
Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources added an eleventh-hour amendment to their portion of the budget package late Wednesday night, calling for the sale of thousands of acres of public lands in Nevada and Utah. Introduced by Representatives Mark Amodei of Nevada and Celeste Maloy of Utah, the provision capitalized on longtime aspirations by Republicans to privatize Bureau of Land Management acreage in the West.
As I wrote on Wednesday, the Republicans’ maneuver, “which came at nearly midnight, left many Democrats and environmental groups deeply frustrated by the lack of transparency,” and critics had little time to comb through the extent of the proposal. While early reviews of the bill estimated the sell-off of about 11,000 acres of land, much of it apparently near cities — in keeping with Republican Senator Mike Lee’s aspirations to use BLM land for suburban sprawl — the Wilderness Society informed me last night that the accounting may end up as high as 500,000 acres or more. That’s consequential not just for public land advocates, but also because “turning over public lands to states — or to private owners — could ease the way for expansive oil and gas development, especially in Utah, where there are ambitions to quadruple exports of fossil fuels from the state’s northeastern corner,” I note in my piece. Moreover, “Reducing BLM land could also limit opportunities for solar, wind, and geothermal development.”
5. Thinning forests to reduce wildfire danger could also mitigate droughts: study
Thinning forests is a favorite idea of Republicans, who’ve rebuked blue states over forestry practices they claim exacerbate the dangers of wildfires. Now, a new study from researchers at the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources at the University of Nevada, Reno looking at the hydrology of the Sierra Nevadas has found that the practice — along with prescribed fires — could also have potential upsides during drought years, including generating more mountain runoff.
According to the findings published in the journal Water Resources Research, water yields in forests thinned to densities closer to those of a century ago can be increased by 8% to 14% during drought years. That water would be “particularly valuable … to farmers and cities in central California and northern Nevada who rely on Sierra [Nevada] snowpack for much of their water supply,” according to a press release about the research. Significant flooding risks did not appear to increase with the water yields. As earlier researchers have found, however, the results of forest thinning treatments also depend on how, where, and to what extent the treatments are applied. Not all landscapes would necessarily benefit from such regimes. For example, while President Trump blamed the January fires in Los Angeles on poor forest management in California, the blazes were in chaparral, not in forests where thinning could be applied.
Riverside Clean Air Carshare
University of California, Riverside announced Wednesday that it is launching the nation’s only hydrogen-powered carshare program in a partnership with city and state agencies. Participants can rent Toyota Mirai sedans through a smartphone app and pay hourly rates competitive with Uber and Lyft fees.