Climate Money

There's $326 billion sitting in charitable accounts that face no legal requirement to ever pay out a cent — and the 2026 IPO wave is about to add hundreds of thousands more. Donor-advised funds are now 11 of the top 20 charities in the US by contributions, and the same vehicle that could fund the climate transition has spent two decades quietly funding the movement against it. In this episode,...

Every climate VC post-Trump has said it: we don't invest in companies that rely on subsidies. But the entire climate transition has been living off the biggest subsidy in human history — 200 years of cheap, abundant fossil fuels that funded low interest rates, scalable manufacturing, global trade, and the financial architecture of the transition itself. In this Season 2 essay, Susan Su makes t...

Venture capital for climate companies is drying up, and early stage companies can't exactly get a loan from the bank. So, who's actually financing the companies that are supposed to become tomorrow's bankable assets?  Dimitry Gershenson, co-founder and CEO of Enduring Planet, joins us for a dispatch straight from the field. His firm lends against government grants and commercial contra...

The Iran war is dominating oil headlines, but the sleeper story is what happens to the $6 trillion in Gulf sovereign wealth fund capital that underpins the AI boom and the energy transition. We break down the unprecedented force majeure reviews now underway across Gulf economies, what they mean for climate project finance and fund formation, and why the real disruption isn't barrels — it's balance...

Climate Money is back! In the Season 2 premiere, host Susan Su breaks down BloombergNEF's bombshell report: global energy transition investment hit $2.3 trillion in 2025 — a new all-time record and the fourth consecutive record year. But the real story isn't the headline number. It's what's inside it. Over half of that $2.3T — a massive $1.2 trillion — was debt. That's a 15:1 r...

On today’s episode, we talk about climate change and the cost of food.  New work from researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Central Bank is projecting that climate change will drive up food prices around the world by up to 3.2% per year by 2035.  Food will grow to take up a greater proportion of total household income because these price increases will o...

Welcome to the Episode 9 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: New research that shoes Direct Air Capture won’t be able to hit the magical $100/ton cost benchmark, and why this flies in the face of everything we’ve been told  How a billion-dollar CO2 pipeline project is a secret force opposing EV adoption  The blossoming frenemy-ship between Big Oil and Big Ag And how all thi...

Welcome to the Episode 8 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: The EU’s newly revised Extended Producer Responsibility proposal, and how it’s taking on food waste and fast fashion.  Why linear capitalism ’s days could be numbered The real numbers behind the climate wealth gap and what it means for builders and investors As always I welcome your feedback and reflections.   

Welcome to the Episode 7 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: Enel Energy’s $500M+ wind farm loss, and what it teaches us about energy history, tribal sovereignty, and knowing your audience  Why culture, not money, is the tide that floats all boats — or sinks them, as we’ll see This is a particularly thorny issue so we’ve dedicated the entire episode to this topic. As always...

Welcome to the Episode 6 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: The European Commission’s new recommendation to cut emissions by 90% by 2040 , and what Chinese labor has to do with it The EU’s upcoming Parliamentary elections and how they could effect European Climate Money  A revised look at Kenya’s carbon credits fee and how regulation can help markets, even if they impose c...

Welcome to the Episode 5 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: New research that sheds light on climate deniers , the mental models that do — and don’t — fuel their skepticism, and what it has to do with climate money, especially as more climate companies and jobs are flooding otherwise climate unfriendly red states in the US Two important food labeling updates and what they...

Welcome to the Episode 4 of the Climate Money Podcast.  In this episode, we look at: Five big takeaways from the IEA’s newly released 170-pg Electricity 2024 report , including the structural success of renewables, where the biggest emissions reductions are happening, and nuclear’s big moment AI’s climate footprint and who’s poised to profit. Private equity firm and landlord of the nation Blacksto...

Welcome to the Episode 3 of the Climate Money Podcast. Follow the climate headlines — and the climate money — with me, Susan Su.  In this episode, we look at: $200B in climate losses and the climate narrative problem. New data out from global reinsurer Munich RE shows that 2023 was the biggest year on record for climate-related losses. So why are we still talking about the “weather?” Tesla’s Hertz...

Welcome to the Episode 2 of the Climate Money Podcast. Follow the climate headlines — and the climate money — with me, Susan Su. In this episode, we look at: Kenya’s carbon cash cow , a plan to charge a new 15%-25% take rate on all carbon credits minted in the country, and whether this is good, bad or meh for Kenya’s climate ambitions and for global carbon markets Solyndra 2.0 , a fraud-hunt that’...

Welcome to the Episode 1 of the Climate Money Podcast. Follow the climate headlines — and the climate money — with me, Susan Su. One of the central ideas behind my work as a climate investor, and that of many others like me, is that solving climate change is the value creation opportunity of a lifetime. In this episode, we look at: - The UAE's new $30B climate fund and what it means for climat...