Trump’s tariffs will deliver a big blow to climate tech

“It would be hard for me to think of cleantech or climate tech sectors that aren’t facing huge risks,” says Noah Kaufman, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, who served on the Council of Economic Advisers under President Joe Biden. “I think we’re a country without a federal climate strategy at this point, with an economy headed in the wrong direction, so I don’t see a lot of reason to be optimistic,” he adds. Indeed, there are mounting challenges and rising risks across the cleantech and climate tech sectors. How deep and wide-ranging the impact of the economic changes could be depends on many variables and on reactions still taking shape. In particular, the negotiations underway in Congress over the budget will determine the fate of subsidies for electric vehicles, battery production, and other support for clean energy. Many of those programs were established by former president Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction ... Read full article.