Corporate giants and some countries are backsliding on their climate commitments — a worrying sign in a year that otherwise saw hopeful growth in renewables, Al Gore and his investment colleagues say in a new report from Generation Investment Management.

Why it matters: The sustainability trends report details lower EV production and sales in the U.S., along with hiccups in the speed of wind energy deployment in some areas.

Zoom in: Gore tells Axios that the hard work of trying to meet ambitious emissions reduction and deforestation targets has become more clear to CEOs and world leaders and led many to walk away from past promises.

• "We see that some of the ballyhooed climate promises are beginning to resemble New Year's resolutions: easy to make and hard to keep," Gore says. "And the reality is, as we note candidly, the world is not on track at present, to reach the goal of net zero emissions by 2050."
• Oil and gas companies that were leaning into the renewables side of their businesses have gone in the other direction, chasing shareholder returns.
• Meanwhile, major financial firms with sustainability targets have been fleeing groups of like-minded corporations.
• Part of this is coming from political pressure, Gore says, with a campaign against ESG investing and so-called "woke capital" stoking fears of potential legal liability for companies that stay in certain climate alliances.

Yes, but: Renewable electricity generation has made major gains in the past year, Gore says, with solar power as the big standout. The overall snapshot from the report of the energy transition is of significant momentum despite many setbacks.

• "The way we see it, there is a big wheel turning in the right direction, and some smaller wheels turning in the opposite direction," he said.
• "The big wheel is going to prevail in setting the direction of travel for the world, but the pace of the transition away from fossil fuels is what's being struggled over now."
• Gore hopes the coming year will bring progress on a demand-side signal to reduce fossil fuel use, saying, "It's been obvious for some time that we need a global price on carbon."

Zoom out: On the 2024 election, Gore said the vast gulf between Vice President Harris' climate record and former president Donald Trump's has led many climate groups to make a calculated choice to push for her election before exerting policy pressure.

• "It's understandable why some climate advocates are saying, OK, job number one is to make sure that we get through this narrow passage successfully, and then fight another day," he said.

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A diverse group of young carbon removal startups with new contracts have one common strategy: they can hitch their wagons to huge, incumbent industries.

Why it matters: Integrating removal into sectors like mining and farming can cut costs and help scale, per Frontier, the consortium of corporate giants trying to jumpstart the young market.

• That's a through-line in many of the latest small "pre-purchases" brokered with startups on behalf of buyers like Google parent Alphabet and H&M.

Driving the news: This morning, Frontier announced $4.5 million worth of these deals, which provide an early test of viability, with nine startups. Examples include:

• Exterra, which uses mining waste in an enhanced weatherization process i.e. speeding up CO2 uptake in mineral formations.
• Planeteers, which has tech to boost CO2 absorption in water and integrates this into water treatment plants.
• Silica, a "field weathering" startup that spreads volcanic rock in sugarcane farms. It boosts yields while removing CO2, they say.

What they're saying: CEOs talked up how they can work with existing industries in a briefing with reporters.

• "Our process cleans up dangerous leftover tailings from mining, and we're able to extract useful materials like nickel, and it helps permanently store CO2 on a large scale," Exterra CEO Olivier Dufresne said yesterday.

Catch up quick: The "pre-purchase" is one of two tracks via Frontier, which brokers deals but also carefully vets the kaleidoscope of startups seeking buyers.

• They also shepherd larger, commercial-scale offtake contracts with startups that are further along.

Reality check: These remain early — and uncertain — days in the effort to eventually reach the billion-ton scale that would make removal a strong weapon against climate change.

The world's hottest summer on record had strong fingerprints of human-caused global climate change at the local levels, according to a new data analysis from the nonprofit Climate Central.

Why it matters: Heat is one of the deadliest types of extreme weather, having claimed more than 2,000 lives in the U.S. last year alone.

Zoom in: Climate Central used its Climate Shift Index, which seeks to peg climate change's influence on daily average temperatures, to analyze human-caused climate change's role in generating dangerous heat.

• They found that one in four people globally had no break this summer from intense heat that climate change made at least 3 times more likely compared to the preindustrial era.
• Global exposure to such climate change-driven heat peaked on Aug. 13, the analysis shows, when 4.1 billion people worldwide experienced temperatures at that three times more likely threshold.

By the numbers: The average person experienced 17 more days of "risky heat" due to climate change than they otherwise would have, the analysis shows.

• Such days are defined as having high temperatures hotter than 90% of the temperatures recorded there during the 30-year span between 1991-2020.

Stunning stat: Residents of Longyearbyen, on the island of Svalbard, Norway, far above the Arctic Circle, experienced their hottest August and hottest August day on record, with a high of 68°F.

• Such unusual heat had major consequences, leading to some of the fastest-melting of the islands' thinning glaciers yet recorded.

😬 Lagging efforts to integrate renewables into global power grids threaten to sap the benefits of the wind and solar surge, the International Energy Agency warns.

• Why it matters: They see delays jeopardizing up to 15% of solar PV and wind generation in 2030 that would otherwise happen under nations' existing climate policies. That means fewer CO2 cuts.
• What's next: The new report offers IEA's first "stocktake" of integration measures worldwide to help steer policymakers toward effective strategies.

👀 The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to move legislation on offshore wind revenue sharing next week, Axios Pro: Energy Policy scooped yesterday.

• Why it matters: The markup on the RISEE Act is a key step toward its potential inclusion in a year-end legislative package.
• How it works: The bill would set up a system to share offshore wind royalty revenue with states (it currently goes to the Treasury) and send a portion of it to coastal restoration and conservation.
• Go deeper: If you need smart, quick intel on energy and climate policy for your job, get Axios Pro Policy.

That's how much BlackRock, Microsoft and other giants hope to mobilize to finance data centers and energy to power them. CNBC has more.