Climate Tech: What Is Actually Working

Climate technology is not a monolith. It encompasses solar, wind, batteries, nuclear, green hydrogen, carbon capture, electric vehicles, sustainable aviation fuel, heat pumps, precision fermentation, and dozens of other sectors with vastly different maturity levels, cost curves, and deployment trajectories. Treating them uniformly produces bad analysis.

What Is Working: The Electrification Stack

Solar photovoltaic costs have fallen approximately 90% since 2010. The learning rate — cost reduction per doubling of cumulative installed capacity — has been remarkably consistent at around 20-25%. Wind (onshore) has followed a similar though less dramatic curve. Lithium-ion battery costs have fallen from ~$1,000/kWh in 2010 to under $100/kWh in 2024, enabling the EV transition and grid-scale storage.

These cost declines are now largely self-sustaining — they do not depend on continued subsidy at current rates to remain competitive with fossil alternatives in most markets. Solar and wind are the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in most of the world. The IEA projects that renewables will account for 90% of new power capacity additions globally through 2028.

What Is Working: EVs

Electric vehicle adoption is accelerating, led by China (which accounts for ~60% of global EV sales). The technology works — modern EVs have ranges exceeding 300 miles, charging infrastructure is improving rapidly, and total cost of ownership is at or below comparable ICE vehicles in most segments. The constraints are now grid capacity, charging access equity, and battery supply chains — not vehicle technology.

What Is Struggling: Green Hydrogen

Green hydrogen — produced by electrolysis powered by renewable electricity — has attracted enormous investment but faces fundamental cost challenges. Producing, transporting, storing, and converting hydrogen introduces significant efficiency losses at each step. For applications that can be directly electrified (heating, light transport), green hydrogen is rarely the right answer. Its genuine applications are hard-to-abate industries: steel production, chemical feedstocks, long-haul aviation. In those niches it matters. As a universal decarbonization solution, it has been over-sold.

What Is Struggling: Carbon Capture

Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2 remains expensive — $400-1000+ per ton of CO2 removed, versus the ~$50-100/ton carbon price needed for widespread deployment. Current DAC plants remove thousands of tons per year; the gigatonne scale required for meaningful impact would require costs to fall by 1-2 orders of magnitude. The learning curve exists, but deployment is at an early stage. Point-source carbon capture (at industrial facilities) is more mature but faces the same fundamental question: is it cheaper than switching to a low-carbon process?

The Deployment Gap

The IEA's Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario requires tripling renewable energy capacity, doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvements, and deploying technologies (like DAC and green hydrogen) at scales that do not yet exist. Current policy and investment trajectories fall short of this scenario. The technologies exist or are within reach; the political and financial mobilization required to deploy them at the necessary speed does not yet exist.