What I Learned At SF Climate Week

If fighting climate change were a religion, the San Francisco Bay area would be Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem, which is why thousands of people like me poured into the city for Climate Week.

People of faith are an appropriate metaphor in an era when the federal government is rolling back environmental protections and terminating funding for startups and research institutions working on solutions to decarbonize transportation, energy, and waste, and use water more wisely.

The good news is that the founders and funders I encountered haven’t lost their fervor in creating a more habitable planet for the eight billion people who wake up every morning on our planet.

 Cleantech Funding Is A Long-Term Investment

Scaling new technologies to move, feed, and keep us hydrated takes far longer than a four-year election cycle. Those who fund these technologies understand they are in this for the long haul, certainly much longer than any administration in Washington, D.C. While there is concern about the open hostility the Trump administration exhibits towards solutions for climate change, there’s a tacit understanding that the progress of these technologies is unmoored from a 24-hour news cycle.

There’s A Glut Of Dry Powder

“Dry powder” is a finance term for the money VCs can call on from larger funds to make investments. At the end of 2024, it was at an all-time high, which is unsurprising given the high interest rates and election uncertainty. But after a two-year downturn in investments from the private sector in cleantech, how long will that powder stay dry now that public funding is drying up? Mission-driven funds have a mission to deploy capital in mission-driven companies. Once the chaos of the first few months of the Trump administration settles into mere turbulence, we may see more funds step into the breach.

Stories Are Sticky

One doesn’t need an advanced degree in physics or chemistry to know that the companies in San Francisco this week with the best narratives were disproportionately rewarded by judging panels of savvy investors. I constantly heard feedback along the lines of, “Tell me who your customer is, and what’s their pain point?” Yet not once did I hear a judge ask about the actual technology outside of whether the company had patent protection.