Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Technology

The Death of ‘Climate Tech’

It’s time for another rebrand.

A climate billboard.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Trump 2.0 may sound the death knell for climate tech — not the concept, of course, but the phrase. “Climate tech” became ubiquitous during the Biden era, attached to companies pitching anything vaguely related to either climate change or technology, as well as the specialized and well-resourced venture capital firms created to fund them. It’s even in my job title: climate tech reporter.

I’ve been hearing rumblings around the liabilities of this language for a while, going back well before the election. The big bummer truth is that talking about “climate” is polarizing, and though we may be mostly removed from the days of pure denialism, climate solutions are now being framed as a priority of the elites. “I’ll go anywhere to talk about how the climate agenda is ending the American dream,” the president of the Heritage Foundation and leader of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, said at this year’s New York Climate Week.

Given that an unfortunately solid percentage of the next administration is likely sympathetic to Roberts’ notions, I was inclined to agree with Tommy Leep, the founder and sole operator of the software-focused “climate tech” venture firm Jetstream, when he posted this a few days after the election.

When I followed up with Leep, he told me, “I actually think it’s still a great time to start a climate startup. Just don’t call it a climate startup.” No matter who is in office, Leep said, he sees the arc of the startup universe bending toward companies with positive climate externalities. But that doesn’t mean we need to categorize them as such. “Call it ‘American dynamism,’ or ‘critical infrastructure,’ or ‘frontier tech,’ or any of these other things.”

Todd Khozein, co-founder and CEO of the startup incubator and investment firm SecondMuse, threw out some additional ideas — “energy efficiency,” “energy independence,” and “resilient cities” could all do the trick. After all, “Who doesn’t want a resilient city? Who doesn’t want to save?” Khozein asked.

And while Trump’s preferred term for his fossil-fuel oriented agenda, “energy dominance,” is a tad aggressive and definitely not something I’d want on my business card, many climate tech companies do play in the realm of “energy security” and “energy resilience” by providing baseload power to stabilize the grid, secure fuel supplies, and wean the U.S. off energy imports (a process that has been ongoing for more than a decade). These could be excellent euphemisms, because even if Trump guts the Department of Energy, he will definitely not do the same to the Department of Defense. DOD funding supports a number of clean technologies, including next generation geothermal, novel battery tech, and sustainable aviation fuel.

“I think that we’ll see a very rapid adaptation of the language of entrepreneurs because their survival is dependent upon it,” Khozein told me. “A lot of these businesses, if you’re not going to get that million dollar grant, if you’re not going to get that [Small Business Innovation Research funding], if you’re not going to get that support from the Department of Energy, then there’s simply no future.”

There’s certainly precedent for this type of alternate framing. This summer I reported on Florida’s climate resilience-focused tech hub, formed shortly after Governor Ron DeSantis deleted the words “climate change” from state law. But Francesca de Quesada Covey, who leads the hub’s development, told me that what resonates most with Floridians is the acknowledgement that their “relationship with water is changing.” And when I was researching the funding landscape for climate adaptation tech, Jay Koh, co-founder of the investment firm The Lightsmith Group, told me that the adaptation companies he’s interested in often “call themselves ‘business continuity’ or ‘water efficiency’ or ‘agricultural precision technologies’ or ‘supply chain management in the face of weather volatility.’”

Since Trump loyalists will be holding the purse strings of coveted government subsidies, grants, and loans, it’s clear why companies would want to rebrand. But Leep told me it’s an open question as to whether VCs such as Jetstream will feel compelled to follow suit. Personally, he’s now most excited to support startups that not only have a positive environmental impact, but are also aligned with the incoming administration’s focus on domestic manufacturing.

As for his website that advertises Jetstream’s focus on “pre-seed climate tech software startups?”

“Give me a couple months,” Leep assured me. “I’m sorting through what that language is.”

Green

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Energy

The Nuclear Power Dealmaking Boom Is Real

Thank data center developers and, yes, Trump.

A nuclear power plant.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Whichever way you cut it, this has been an absolute banner year for nuclear deals in the U.S. It doesn’t much matter the metric — the amount of venture funding flowing to nuclear startups, the number of announcements regarding planned reactor restarts and upgrades, gigawatts of new construction added to the pipeline — it’s basically all peaking. Stock prices are up across all major publicly traded nuclear companies this year, in some cases by over 100%.

“This year is by far the biggest year in terms of nuclear deals that has occurred, probably, since the 70s,” Adam Stein, the director of nuclear innovation at The Breakthrough Institute, told me. “It’s spanning the gamut from bringing a 40-year-old reactor back to things that have not even been proven scientifically yet.”

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Electric Vehicles

AM Briefing: U.S. Power’s Record Surge

On the Senate’s climate whip, green cement deals, and a U.S. uranium revival.

U.S. Electricity Demand Surges to Back-to-Back Records
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: Flash flooding strikes the Southeastern U.S. • Monsoon rains unleash landslides in southern China • A heat dome is bringing temperatures of up to 107 degrees Fahrenheit to France, Italy, and the Balkans.

THE TOP FIVE

1. The U.S. broke electricity demand records twice in July

An August 5 chart showing last month's record electricity demand peaks.EIA

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Podcast

Trump’s Move to Kill the Clean Air Act’s Climate Authority Forever

Rob and Jesse talk through the proposed overturning of the EPA’s “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases with Harvard Law School’s Jody Freeman.

The Capitol.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Trump administration has formally declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are not dangerous pollutants. If the president gets his way, then the Environmental Protection Agency may soon surrender any ability to regulate heat-trapping pollution from cars and trucks, power plants, and factories — in ways that a future Democratic president potentially could not reverse.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, we discuss whether Trump’s EPA gambit will work, the arguments that the administration is using, and what it could mean for the future of U.S. climate and energy policy. We’re joined by Jody Freeman, the Archibald Cox Professor of Law at Harvard and the director of Harvard’s environmental and energy law program. She was an architect of the Obama administration’s landmark deal with automakers to accept carbon dioxide regulations.

Keep reading...Show less