Energy & Climate: The Connection Brief

The AI · Energy · Climate Connection Brief Series

AI & Energy  ·  Energy & Climate  ·  AI & Climate

Summary

Climate and energy are one system, running in a loop. Climate volatility strains the energy system from both ends — raising demand as heat drives cooling load, and disrupting supply as disasters and grid stress mount. The transition that would relieve that strain has started: in 2025, renewables overtook coal for the first time in the modern power system. Yet it has stalled at the margin, where clean projects wait in interconnection queues, policy has turned against wind and solar, and the skilled workforce to build it is aging out.

So the gap gets filled with gas. And in 2026, a chokepoint war in the Strait of Hormuz repriced that fossil bet in real time — oil and globally traded gas alike. The bill lands where it always does: on balance sheets, through insurers retreating from climate-exposed markets and assets stranded by the transition.

This brief traces nine connections across that loop, each sourced to primary 2024–2026 data. One question runs through all of them: who carries the risk, and where does it travel?

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