AI Data Centers
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global economy and the energy system that powers it. By 2030, AI data centers could consume nearly 1,000 TWh per year, ~3% of world demand.
Abatement Scenario
Abatement Scenario
Abatement Scenario
In 2025, global climate investment topped $2.3 trillion, yet emissions continue to grow. The International Energy Agency estimates it will take triple that number to achieve net-zero. These costs imply massive opportunities, but business and financial decision-makers often rely on incomplete or biased climate information. As a result, the allocation of capital to impactful decarbonization solutions is fragmented, slow, and ultimately both inefficient and insufficient.
The Climate Knowledge Initiative translates rigorous analysis into actionable insights and helps build consensus among key decision-makers, while unapologetically flagging where business and public interests diverge. Our goal is to drive capital, talent, and innovation toward investable and scalable decarbonization solutions.
Explore freely available technology deep dives, business case studies, and key insights.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping the global economy and the energy system that powers it. By 2030, AI data centers could consume nearly 1,000 TWh per year, ~3% of world demand.
The cement sector scopes 1 and 2 emissions account for around 5-8% of total global CO2e emissions, and have more than doubled since 2000. Clinker production accounts for over 80% of those emissions.
Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is a critical technology for addressing climate change. It involves capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from industrial facilities or directly from the atmosphere through direct air capture (DAC), followed by its utilization or secure storage.
Developments in batteries and other energy storage technology have accelerated to a seemingly head-spinning pace recently — even for the scientists, investors, and business leaders at the forefront of the industry.
Demand for critical minerals is growing as the world shifts toward renewables and other innovations in the energy transition.
Widespread deployment of solar energy production can abate 5.5 to 10 gigatonnes of CO2e by 2050 in select subsectors, including 24% to 43% of power and heat, depending on the transition scenario.
The steel sector is responsible for around 10% of global CO2e emissions, which have doubled since 2000. The majority of these emissions come from the carbon-intensive coke oven, iron furnace, and steel furnace stages of production.
Wind turbines are hardly the buzziest of clean technologies. After all, rudimentary versions of these systems, which capture kinetic energy from airflows and convert a portion of it into electric energy, were the earliest competitive form of renewable electricity.
Danone’s story of looking for a larger purpose beyond short-term profits seemed to come to an ignominious end in 2021. The then-chief executive Emmanuel Faber was removed by the board of directors following pressure from activist investors who claimed that prioritising environmental, social and governance issues hurt the company’s financial returns.
At a recent Columbia Business School gathering focused on cement decarbonisation, Maher Al-Haffar, chief financial officer at Cemex, one of the world’s largest cement companies, had a message for his peers: “There’s a misconception that for any emitting industry, the cost of transition is value-destructive to shareholders,” he said. “In our industry, we actually think it’s value-creating.”
Ørsted has replaced its chief executive, as the world’s largest offshore wind developer seeks to boost its share price and deal with the impact of the Trump administration’s energy policies on its US expansion plans.
Solar panels have become so cheap so quickly, that they have gone from curiosity to commodity in less than four decades.
The global glut means panels have fallen in price dramatically, leading to widespread proliferation. They are sometimes considered cheap enough to be used as an alternative material for garden fencing; in some locations, new panels enable households to sever their connection to the grid.