Al Gore and J.P. Morgan analysts just dropped separate looks at what's both driving and hobbling the fractious global shift toward clean energy.

Why it matters: The energy transition is in trouble for lots of reasons.

• A "We Didn't Start the Fire"-style rundown would include: White House policy U-turns; some oil giants and banks pulling back; AI power demand; and other signs of a big reset, or new pragmatism, or whatever you label it.

🎙️Driving the news: Into this mix lands the latest sustainability report from Al Gore's Generation Investment Management.

• It takes the pulse of low-carbon energy growth and threats. "We will come out of this period having sustained damage to the cause of a cleaner future," it finds.

Yes, but: "The opponents of the energy transition can slow it down, but we do not believe they can stop it," it adds.

• It offers a tour through drivers like China's push to become an "electrostate" built on renewables, EVs and more — and keep exporting those technologies worldwide.
• But China, the world's largest polluter by far, also keeps building new coal plants, and its appetite for tougher climate policies is unclear.

⚔️ Friction point: Gore told me that Trump is more "loaded for bear this time around" than his initial term, four years that saw EV sales and renewables surge.

• "The factors that overcame his opposition to the transition in his first four years are even more powerful today," he said in an interview.
• He noted cost declines for renewables and batteries, and the report emphasizes that emissions growth — but plenty of clean tech action too — is concentrated outside the U.S.
• "If you look at it on a global basis, we get a distortion field here in the U.S. now with Trump's jihad against the sustainability transition," Gore said.

👀 The intrigue: The J.P. Morgan report explores how nations' geopolitical goals are creating a "new energy security age" of evolving allegiances.

• Think "new forms of infrastructure nationalism, resource weaponization, and partnerships shaped by technological and mineral interdependence."
• This mix is bullish for fossil fuel production and exports in some places — including the U.S.
• But some regions will use their "strategic national resource advantages" to boost competing tech and minerals, and curb reliance on fossil imports.

"Nations' economic futures hinge on how they play the natural resources hand they have been dealt — via policy, investment, and alliances — amid AI-driven demand spikes, conflict shocks, and access to capital," Derek Chollet, head of the JPMorganChase Center for Geopolitics, said in a statement.

🏃Catch up quick: The bank's report adds to a trend.

• Multiple analysts say global upheavals — like trade wars and actual wars — may spur countries to replace some oil and gas imports with homegrown electrons.

The bottom line: "The risk is not that the transition won't succeed. We are going to prevail in this," Gore tells me.

• Instead, he said, the risk is the slowdown that enables even more harm from climate change.

🆕 Google just unveiled a two-pronged agreement with CO2 removal startup Vaulted Deep. It's a purchase deal for 50,000 metric tons of removal by 2030, and a scientific review of how their approach can prevent methane emissions.

• The big picture: Vaulted Deep's tech injects carbon-rich organic wastes — including human waste — deep underground. They would otherwise release CO2 and methane when burned, landfilled or spread on land.

💵 Generate Capital, a major sustainable infrastructure investor, has begun discussing an IPO, four sources tell Axios Pro Deals.

• Why it matters: A public listing would better position the low-carbon-focused firm to follow its strategy, which sources say has struggled to maintain traction with LPs.
• Go deeper: Unlock the whole story, and a steady stream of scoops and must-read analysis, by talking to our sales team about Axios Pro Deals.

🐿️ Chestnut Carbon, a nature-based carbon removal startup, raised an additional $90 million for its Series B round from existing investor Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

• Why it matters: There's still appetite for funding removal as corporate giants buy credits despite the U.S. government's climate pullback.
• State of play: The incremental finance brings the total Series B round to $250 million. It also follows a $210M deal with JPMorgan and Microsoft that applies traditional project finance to nature-based removal for one of the first times.

Summer temperatures are hanging around longer nationwide compared to the early 1970s, a new analysis finds, as climate change affects the four seasons.

Why it matters: Temperatures staying relatively high for longer periods can increase cooling demand, make life miserable in classrooms without A/C, mess with farmers' growing seasons, and prolong risks of heat-related illnesses.

• Longer summers elevate wildfire risks by drying out vegetation and soil, creating more fuel for blazes.

Driving the news: Summer temperatures are lingering compared to 1970 in just over 90% of the 246 U.S. cities analyzed in a new report from the research group Climate Central.

• Among cities with lingering heat, summer temperatures are lasting an extra 10 days on average.

Zoom in: These temps are lasting for the most extra days in Wheeling, West Virginia (52 more days compared to 1970); Miami (+46) and San Angelo, Texas (+31).

• But some cities show opposing trends.

How it works: Climate Central's analysis reflects the last date each year with highs equal to or greater than historical summer-like temperatures.

• It defines "summer-like temperatures" as the 75th percentile of daily highs during the 1991-2000 climate normal.

Full story

🛢️ The EU will look to speed up its phaseout of Russian fossil fuel imports, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after speaking with President Trump.

• Why it matters: Trump is pressing the EU for tougher steps against Russia, but his appetite for big new U.S. sanctions against Moscow is quite unclear.
• What we're watching: The EU is more broadly preparing a fresh sanctions package around targeting crypto, banks, and energy, von der Leyen posted on X.

⚡ The Edison Electric Institute, a key group of for-profit utilities, has joined the push for major legislation to overhaul permitting this year.

• Why it matters: Some powerful K Street players see at least a narrow window for a deal in the waning months of 2025.
• Driving the news: EEI, in a new letter to Congress, spells out top-line priorities for speeding up action under NEPA and the Clean Water Act.
• Reality check: It's a steep uphill climb even as groups cite AI power demand as a reason to act fast.

⛏️ Trump officials are looking to create a multibillion-dollar fund to stake overseas mining projects "as Washington seeks to counter Chinese dominance of critical minerals," the FT reports.

• State of play: It would involve the U.S. Development Finance Corp., Orion Resource Partners, and possibly other investors and agencies, the paper reports.

🌽 EPA is floating plans that would require large oil refiners to "make up for lost biofuel demand after the Trump administration earlier waived some blending requirements for small refiners," Bloomberg reports.

"Statistics are ... not Republican statistics or Democratic statistics. They're numbers, and they should be available to everybody, and we ought to have confidence that we're doing a pretty good job in collecting, publishing and analyzing those figures."

Why it matters: Sieminski is worried about cutbacks at EIA and has perspective to spare on uses of energy data, having also served as Deutsche Bank's chief energy economist.

• What we're watching: He praised Tristan Abbey, Trump's nominee to run EIA, whom the Senate has yet to confirm.
• Full podcast