There’s nothing like running a climate tech startup when the country’s leader doesn’t believe in climate change.
Julia Collins, founder of carbon assessment startup Planet FWD, started the advocacy group Tech4Kamala in July in part because she wanted a president who would support climate-friendly regulation, rather than one who thinks global warming is a hoax. Now, Collins is bracing herself for another Trump administration, which includes an incoming energy secretary who has said "there is no climate crisis” and an Environmental Protection Agency pick who seems hell-bent on making sure environmental protections don’t get in the way of making the U.S. “the AI capital of the world.”
Collins hopes this uncertain future will ultimately galvanize the private sector and local and state agencies to innovate, both technologically and by finding political and financial workarounds to obstacles at the federal level.
It’s become clear, Collins told Gazetteer SF, that climate tech companies will need to get better at lobbying and advocating at the state and local levels going forward, to combat Trump’s almost-inevitable rollbacks of climate and energy-transition progress. In the weeks since the election, Collins and others have met with investors, employees, and lawmakers in preparation, laying out the biggest likely changes and roadblocks they’ll now have to overcome, both as businesses and as advocates of limiting the damage caused by greenhouse gasses.
One federal policy likely to be on the chopping block is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s March climate rule requiring businesses to report the greenhouse gas emissions from their facilities, disclose revenue losses as a result of extreme weather events, and specify expenditures made on climate goals.
The rule has been a boon for Collins’ business, which helps consumer brands measure and track their greenhouse gas emissions in support of their decarbonization efforts. And even the buzz around the rule has been helpful, Collins said.
The fossil fuel industry and GOP lawmakers have been fighting against these rules in court, and the Trump administration is expected to ditch them entirely. So after Trump’s election, Collins jumped into action, digging into California bills that could help to bridge the gap and seeking meetings with state legislators.
“There’s a new set of skills required,” she told Gazetteer about her turn toward direct lobbying. “This is not what I was doing as my day job…It’s a new skill we’re going to have to develop and get good at.”
Several of Collins’ investors, meanwhile, have held town hall meetings for climate tech founders to help one another prepare for what’s coming.
“We’re going to need help,” Collins said.
Collins, a San Francisco-based founder, has been specifically paying attention to SB 253 and SB 261, which both go into effect in 2026. SB 253 requires companies with annual revenues over $1 billion that conduct business in California to report their direct greenhouse gas emissions starting next year, and, eventually, the emissions from their entire supply chain. SB 261 requires companies with revenues exceeding $500 million to disclose climate-related financial risks.
California is a huge source of business for many large companies, giving the state a lot of power to mandate such disclosures, even if the federal government stops requiring it. Plus, a California bill “often functions like a national bill” because it’s difficult for companies to maintain separate practices just for one state, Collins said in a follow-up text message.
Collins sees those two bills as a “clear example” of how states can step in to advance climate goals. But the implementation of SB 253 and SB 261 depends on whether the California Air Resources Board can step up and enforce them, Collins said.
Another policy at risk under the Trump administration is the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which authorized tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to fuel the transition to clean energy. It’s widely known as the most important climate-friendly law in the U.S., and represents the country’s largest-ever investment in fighting climate change. Trump, however, has spoken about repealing it.
Many climate tech startups benefited from the Act’s tax credits and other consumer rebates for heat pumps and other home electrification tools, as well as for electric cars and chargers. It’s likely that if such incentives shrink, so could the demand for the expensive products.
Heat pump company Quilt sells its heating and cooling system for almost $6,500 per room, before federal, state, and local rebates. For my 2-bedroom home in the Excelsior, Quilt recommends three indoor units and two outdoor units, coming in at $17,497 after $2,000 in state rebates. Quilt currently applies local and state rebates up front, and plans to do the same with IRA-funded rebates soon — that is, if they don’t go away.
But Quilt CEO Paul Lambert doesn’t seem too concerned about the loss of federal subsidies, telling Gazetteer “we’d just be in the situation we are today and it seems to be going pretty well.” Lambert also thinks it’ll be hard for Trump to repeal the Act, given that it’s funneling more money to red states than blue states.
While Lambert is trying to maintain a level head about what’s next, he addressed employee concerns in notes to the team sent post-election, focused on lessons he learned from the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”
“You can only control what you can control and if you focus a lot on what you can’t control, you end up feeling reactive and disempowered because you can’t control the thing,” he told Gazetteer. What Quilt employees can control, he said, is making great products.
Lambert, unlike Collins (and most other climate experts), is taking a mostly optimistic approach: That Trump administration could actually produce some “tailwinds” for climate tech startups, as local and state governments react to Trump’s policies.
“Actions cause strong reactions,” Lambert said. “And a lot of the local policies, like pro-climate initiatives, actually happened as a result of the first Trump presidency, because states like California and Washington and New York felt like they had to stand up.”
