Is Ambition Enough? What I Heard at Climate Week 2026

Last week in New York, I split my time among SE Advisory Services Climate Week sessions, client meetings, the Corporate Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) Member Forum, and a roundtable at the Clinton Global Initiative. When I returned to the office and compared notes with my colleague Rita Reiser, who had also attended, one theme kept surfacing: the climate and renewable energy conversation is entering a new, more complex transitional chapter.

For years, the focus was on ambition: net-zero commitments, renewable energy targets, climate pledges, and long-term visions. Those goals still matter. But throughout the week, I heard leaders asking a different question: How do we move from ambition to implementation in a way that resonates with businesses, communities, investors, and everyday people, especially given the dynamics of the renewable energy marketplace and evolving guidance? The sheer volume of change is new, even for a market accustomed to it.

The New Energy Risk Environment

In the session I moderated with Elody Samuelson, we discussed what we called “The New U.S. Energy Risk.” We focused on how renewable energy decisions are now driven by several converging forces, including accelerating electricity demand, tighter power markets, shifting tax and policy frameworks, and evolving carbon-accounting standards. 

What struck me most was the urgency I heard from nearly every sustainability, procurement, and finance leader I spoke with: The energy transition is no longer a future-state planning exercise. It is becoming a business continuity discussion.

The latest numbers help explain why urgency was such a consistent theme throughout Climate Week. After decades of relatively flat electricity demand growth, the United States is entering a period of sustained load expansion driven by AI, data centers, manufacturing reshoring, and electrification. The U.S. Department of Energy notes that data centers consumed approximately 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023 and could account for 6.7% to 12% by 2028. Looking further ahead, several forecasts point to an even more dramatic shift. BloombergNEF projects that data centers could account for roughly 20% of U.S. electricity consumption by 2035. Based on U.S. Energy Information Administration figures, that is roughly equivalent to the combined electricity demand of Texas, California, and Florida—and it could be required within the next decade.

The gap between demand and deployment is where the risk lies. AI, data centers, electrification, and grid constraints came up in almost every conversation I had, and many attendees acknowledged that the challenge is no longer simply deploying clean energy. It is deploying enough of it, fast enough, while keeping power affordable and reliable.

A Storytelling Problem, Not Just a Market Problem

Beyond these current and potential future challenges, what can climate leaders do to unite the industry and move it forward? One of the most valuable conversations of the week took place at the Clinton Global Initiative, and it had little to do with technology, emissions accounting, or policy mechanics. It was about communication. Participants kept returning to the idea that climate leaders have a storytelling problem.

Our community often uses abstract terms — decarbonization pathways, emissions inventories, carbon intensity, power purchase agreements, additionality, and avoided emissions. Climate professionals sometimes assume that presenting the facts will be enough, but facts alone rarely inspire action; stories help. The most effective examples I heard tied climate initiatives to tangible outcomes: a manufacturer protecting itself from energy price volatility—a risk-mitigation story; a community attracting new investment—a local-growth story; or a solar project improving energy reliability on Tribal lands—a climate-resilience and economic-development story. Notably, none of those stories started with carbon.

In many markets, energy and climate have become heavily polarized, yet the underlying objectives often enjoy much broader support than the rhetoric suggests. When clean energy is framed around reliability, affordability, competitiveness, energy independence, and economic development, it attracts support from a far wider audience.

That matters more than ever as organizations face scrutiny from multiple stakeholders. The leaders I spoke with are learning that success depends less on winning an argument about market dynamics and more on solving a practical problem that delivers real value to the organization. Renewable energy is no longer just a sustainability strategy. It is an energy strategy, a risk-management strategy, a supply-chain strategy, and a growth strategy. Framing it through the lens of business outcomes and community value makes the conversation more inclusive, more constructive, and ultimately more actionable.

A Call to Action

As our industry evolves, leaders are becoming more pragmatic, and the questions I heard most often were practical ones: 

• How do we manage energy costs and secure enough power? 

• How do we stay competitive while policy keeps shifting? 

• And the harder question: When guidance changes, do organizations' climate commitments still hold, or have they forgotten why they made them in the first place?

The organizations making the most progress treat climate strategy as an operational priority, bringing energy, finance, operations, procurement, technology, and sustainability into one shared business conversation.

That alignment turns energy strategy into business strategy—one tied directly to cost, resilience, and competitiveness. As the market shifts, organizations that act with clarity can shape both their response and the story they tell about it. To explore what these changes mean for your organization, contact a renewable energy expert and continue the conversation.

Contributors:

Mike Nolan, Head of Client Development Renewable Energy & Carbon Advisory, Americas