Inside the trillion-dollar climate solutions industry

Written by Oscar Boyd, Christine Driscoll and Akshat Rathi

A lot can change in a year. At this point in 2022, the world had yet to experience what has now become the hottest summer on record, Ukraine was just six months into combating a Russian invasion that permanently changed the world’s energy landscape, and the US Inflation Reduction Act’s promise of billions of dollars to reduce emissions was little more than ink on a page. The Zero podcast from Bloomberg Green had just published its first episode.

Since then, billions of dollars of IRA money have started to flow in earnest, and sky-high energy prices have helped push clean-tech like never before. Solar generation grew 26% in 2022, and is set to overtake both natural gas and coal as a source of electricity by 2027, according to the International Energy Agency . EVs are responsible for more than 5% of new-car sales in nearly two-dozen countries, a milestone figure on the way to mass-adoption. And Zero has produced more than 50 episodes, covering everything from the high-octane world of clean-tech venture capital to the role of property destruction in climate activism. Here are some of our biggest takeaways:

The money taps are opening

When the IRA was signed last summer, it committed hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change . One organization that benefitted was the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which was given authority to issue some $400 billion in loans to scale up clean tech. Jigar Shah, the head of the LPO, joined Zero to announce an exclusive $9.2 billion loan to help a Ford subsidiary build out its EV-battery manufacturing. (Listen to Shah on Zero .)

The US isn’t alone in scaling up its climate spending: Governments around the world are beginning to ramp up climate finance. In Australia, the government has just given the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) an extra A$20.5 billion ($13 billion) to meet the country’s goal of 82% renewables by 2030, up from about 30% today. “We're up to the challenge,” says CEFC chief executive officer Ian Learmonth on Zero, “We're going to do everything we can to help the country get to that place.” (Listen to Learmonth on Zero .)

Canada was also forced to respond to the IRA, and announced increases to tax credits and clean-energy investment programs. But despite having a climate-progressive leader in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is the only member of the G7 not to significantly lower its emissions. “Why have you failed? ” That’s the question Rathi put to Trudeau in an interview last year. (Listen to Trudeau on Zero . )

Climate tech to the rescue

It’s a challenging time to be a startup, with the cost of borrowing going through the roof, and reputable Silicon Valley lenders going belly up . Climate tech hasn’t been immune, yet entrepreneurs and venture capitalists continue to commit themselves and their money to the climate crisis. (SVB's collapse on Zero .)

Form Energy is a battery start-up backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, who are using the power of rust to invent long-duration batteries. The company is only six years old, but they’ve already attracted $900 million in funding , and plan to open their first factory in the US in 2024 for a tidy price tag of $760 million. (Listen to Bill Gates on Zero .)

If rust batteries sound too sedentary, then consider the climate case for flying cars, championed by battery professor Venkat Viswanathan. Though their application might be minimal to begin with, Viswanathan believes that aviation is “the most important problem that batteries can address.” For him, flying cars are just step one on the journey to emissions-free flying . (Listen to Viswanathan on Zero .)

We need to use less land

Almost 40% of Earth’s land is used for farming, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization . Of this, around two-thirds is devoted to feeding livestock such as cattle, and only one-third to growing crops. “Agriculture is the worst thing we've ever done to the planet,” argues environmental journalist George Monbiot on Zero . “It causes a massive amount of climate breakdown … but it also is the greatest cause of habitat destruction.” One solution Monbiot advocates is a technology called precision fermentation, which he hopes will be used to replace the protein that people get from meat, and allow for the return of farmland to nature.

Monbiot isn’t the only mind devoted to reducing the vast land requirements of farming. Vertical farms are a technology with a huge promise: using less land, less water, and fewer fertilizers to grow the same crops. Over the summer, Rathi visited GroGrace in Singapore to talk with Grace Lim about vertical farming’s profitability problem, and how she hopes her farm can help Singapore — which currently imports 90% of its food — improve its self-sufficiency. “Our vision is to turn growing cities into thriving farms,” says Lim. “We want to be able to build a big indoor farm in every city center starting with Asia.”

Developing nations need a lift

Solar and wind power have become the cheapest sources of energy across most of the world. Yet developing countries aren’t receiving enough money to make the most of these low-carbon energy sources. Despite investment in renewables breaking records in developed countries, emerging economies received less than 15% of global investment in clean energy in 2020, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. The Bridgetown Agenda, championed by Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley aims to solve this financial conundrum, channeling more money from institutions like the World Bank to the countries that need investment most. Avinash Persaud, economic advisor to Prime Minister Mottley, joined Zero to explain how the plan could unlock trillions in climate spending for poorer nations .

Developing countries also hope to benefit from the Loss and Damage Fund, which was established at COP27 to help developing countries recover from climate disaster, and is set to be a major point of deliberation at COP28 in December. For a primer on loss and damage , listen to Rathi’s interview with Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development and a champion of climate vulnerable countries.

Your voice matters

Though the concept of the carbon footprint was cooked up by an oil company, your choices still count. Bloomberg’s Greener Living editor Kira Brindrim joined Zero to discuss the areas you can make the biggest cuts to your emissions , and how to tell the difference between genuine emissions pledges and corporate greenwash.

One way to make an immediate difference is by choosing where you bank and save your retirement money , says Richard Curtis, the writer of Love Actually and founder of Make My Money Matter. The fossil fuel industry is currently supported by billions of dollars invested by pension funds and banks, something you’re probably contributing to without even realizing. Another is your job.

In Zero’s ‘climate quitters’ episode, we heard the stories of people — oil company geophysicists, lawyers and travel execs — who had left their jobs for ones focused on climate action. However, if you still think you can effectively offset your high-carbon lifestyle, some bad news. Mark Trexler, the researcher who pioneered the first carbon offset, told Zero where they went wrong . “Unless you're very careful with how you manage them,” he says. “You really are just selling a lot of Emperor's invisible clothes.”

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