Climate risk has become a defining economic issue. Events like the recent Los Angeles wildfires don’t just damage ecosystems—they destabilize real estate markets, strain public budgets, and erode household wealth. Insurance sits at the center of this system. Because mortgages depend on insurability, the retreat of insurers from high-risk regions—California, Florida, and increasingly the Midwest—signals deeper stress across housing, credit, and local economies. Climate risk is now a systemic financial risk.

Yet even as climate impacts intensify, investment in Climate Tech continues to accelerate. BloombergNEF reports US$2.1 trillion in clean energy investment in 2024, driven by rapid growth in renewables, nuclear, grid upgrades, storage, and electrification. Capital is flowing toward technologies that can deliver reliability, resilience, and decarbonization at scale.

Next-generation geothermal is one of the clearest examples of this shift. Once marginal, it is now emerging as a 24/7 clean power source capable of reshaping the grid. Technology improvements and rising demand for firm clean energy have unlocked new geographies and new investor confidence. The sector raised US$1.7 billion in Q1 2025, and Fervo Energy’s US$462 million Series E underscores geothermal’s move into the mainstream of the energy transition.

Waste and carbon removal are undergoing a similar rethinking. Organic materials make up more than half of North American landfill volume and are a major source of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas. But if intercepted and converted into stable carbon—such as biochar—this waste stream can shift from a climate liability to a climate asset. Durable carbon removal is becoming a necessary complement to clean electricity.

Innovation is also emerging in unexpected areas. New research suggests nuclear waste could be repurposed for long-term hydrogen production, reframing a long-standing environmental challenge as a potential clean energy resource.

Across the energy system, several forces are converging: uneven but rapid renewable expansion, the need for resilient infrastructure, the rise of decentralized demand, and accelerating policy and market shifts. Energy storage illustrates this momentum clearly—the U.S. installed 12.9 GW through Q3 2025, already surpassing 2024’s total.

At the same time, AI data centers and electrification are driving demand far faster than the grid can adapt. Extreme weather is compounding the strain. The old modes imply adding more steel, poles, and wires—is no longer enough.

Flexibility is becoming the new baseload. Storage, demand response, distributed resources, and intelligent grid coordination are now essential to reliability and affordability. The energy transition is no longer just about adding clean generation—it’s about building a system that can adapt in real time to a more volatile world.

The through line across all of this—from insurance markets to geothermal breakthroughs to the strain of AI-driven demand—is that the energy transition is no longer theoretical. It is reshaping the real economy in real time. Climate risk is tightening its grip on financial systems just as new technologies are expanding what’s possible. The question is no longer whether we transition, but whether we do it fast enough and intelligently enough to stay ahead of compounding shocks.

The systems we built for a more stable past can’t carry us into a more volatile future. Reliability will come not from overbuilding the old grid, but from embracing flexibility, distributed intelligence, and technologies that turn liabilities—waste, risk, intermittency—into assets.

If we get this right, the next decade won’t just be about avoiding climate damage. It will be about unlocking a more resilient, more affordable, and more innovative energy economy than the one we have today. The opportunity is enormous, but so is the cost of hesitation. The transition is here. The only choice left is how boldly we lead it.

Risk is rewriting the rules; resilience will rewrite the opportunities.

About the Author

Peter C. Fusaro is the founder of the Wall Street Green Summit, an annual conference bringing together finance leaders, investors, and sustainability innovators to accelerate capital flows toward clean energy and environmental solutions. A pioneer in green trading and sustainable finance, he has spent over four decades at the intersection of energy markets, environmental commodities, and investment strategy. Earth911 is a media sponsor of the upcoming Wall Street Green Summit.