Lately, I’ve found myself using the phrase climate change less and less—despite the state of our planet being an increasingly unavoidable topic. Just last week, I gave opening remarks at a discussion about the latest trends in energy. Over 15 minutes, I covered the war in Iran, electricity demand growth, and the latest policy moves in Washington. After I wrapped one of the audience members chimed in with an observation bordering on a provocation: the phrase climate change hadn’t come up once.
It’s a response I’ve heard again and again over the last year. And as politics and global events go haywire, I don’t think I’m alone experiencing this shift.
But while the literal usage of the phrase climate change is dwarfed by the language of the issue du jour, it’s not true that the topic has disappeared from conversation. Quite the opposite. In a more fundamental sense, the effects of climate change have evolved from the language of science fiction to real economics. And, crucially, the forces once discussed under the banner of climate, from clean energy to industrial policy, are now reshaping markets, industry, technology, and geopolitics. Climate is infused throughout everything. For a while now, I’ve said that to talk about climate change you need to understand these other forces; today, it’s increasingly clear that to fully understand the evolving world you need to understand climate—or at least the technological, economic, and political dynamics that it has created.
It’s time to widen the aperture of these discussions. And, with that in mind, yesterday in London we launched Future Proof. Beginning this week, the name of this column will change. Every week, I’ll continue to bring you analysis of our energy and climate economy, grounded in a recognition that traditional climate coverage captures only one part of a much larger transformation. And we have more in store. In the coming months, we plan to unveil new components of this newsletter, in-person convenings, and multimedia offerings designed to expand the Future Proof conversation to new audiences.
Sign up to Future Proof here
In many ways, this rebrand represents a natural evolution. When we first launched the CO2 newsletter three years ago, the thinking was simple: to cut carbon emissions would require companies to act. With Future Proof, that focus continues but the frame is wider. I’ll cover growing clean tech trends, the expanding role of AI in our economy, and the changing trade landscape. We won’t provide you the latest headlines for every evolving story, but we will give you the 30,000 ft. perspective necessary to understand where the energy and climate economy is headed and why it matters.
This broader frame has become increasingly essential. You can’t understand the strategic implications of conflict in Iran without understanding the way the energy sector has evolved under the banner of transition. And any analysis of the data-center buildout would be incomplete without an understanding of how cheap clean tech has offered a lifeline to power-hungry tech companies.
It’s impossible to know how policy and narrative will evolve. Many climate people posit that the coming extreme weather events will eventually lead to a popular outcry for national measures that cut emissions. We’ll see. In the meantime, to understand our climate future we need to look beyond the language of global warming and beyond conversations happening exclusively in the climate community. Only then can you future proof your business, community, or country.
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