NY Climate Tech: January 30 - February 5, 2023
Carbon capture, food security, plants and landscapes, and clean energy investments (and a lot of them!)
Hi friends,
We had an amazing time seeing so many of you at our NY Climate Tech Meetup last week. It was our biggest yet - we had so many people, we couldn’t all fit in one room! We even made it into Business Insider’s feature on the massive career transition that’s happening in this industry! From entrepreneurs to policymakers to activists to the very many climate-curious among us, we are thrilled with the growth of this community and the enthusiasm you bring. What a way to wrap up Climate Career Week and collaborate with so many rockstars to build a better planet! 🌎🗽🌃
Start the week off with PLANT-O-RAMA at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with talks, a trade show, and job fair. On Tuesday, head to Columbia for a talk from anthropologist Sarah E. Vaughn on climate adaptation and accountability, then follow it up on Wednesday with Triple Helix’s event on universal food security or an architecture talk at Rizzoli books on landscape and the postnatural. On Thursday dig into the creative side of things at the New School at Our Incredible Future NOW or head to NYU for a talk on the role of carbon capture in the journey to net-zero. Wrap up the week with Climate Tech First Fridays (now at the Belvedere Lounge instead of Blue and Gold). On Sunday, learn more about climate activism at How to Save a Planet.
Cheers,
Alec and Sonam
Hot Take: We’re at Trillion with a T!
If you had doubts about the energy transition, let’s just say that the massive increase in investment over the past year means that it’s here to stay.
As the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit gets underway today in San Francisco, I thought it would be great to dive into their new report on the latest and greatest trends in the energy industry.
First off: Global spending on clean energy technologies grew 31% YoY, primarily driven by a huge increase in investment in energy demand. The top of the list is electrified transport, but as an urban infrastructure aficionado at heart, big gains in electrified heat and sustainable materials have me riled up (case in point: heat pump startup Gradient is deploying its technology in the NYC Housing Authority public housing buildings as we speak and sustainable concrete producer Sublime Systems just closed its $40M Series A last week!). For the first time in history, investments in the clean energy transition have matched those in the fossil fuel ecosystem. Here’s to surpassing that number in 2023!
On the equity front, climate tech companies raised $119 billion through VC, PE, secondary offerings, SPACs, and the like. Given the huge downturn in public markets, it’s no surprise that deal activity for SPACs and IPOs decreased significantly. The good news: early stage VC is alive and well! Overall VC/PE was up 3% and as our friends at Climate Tech VC have reported, early stage deal activity defied the odds and gained 40% in 2022!
As I wrote last week for our Hot Take feature for Climate Career Week, this story is all about jobs! Over $79 billion has been invested in clean energy manufacturing facilities over the past year across the globe. China leads the pack with 91% of manufacturing investments, but the US is just starting to make its mark as companies large and small take advantage of IRA subsidies and tax credits. Everything from CarbonCapture’s new direct air capture facility in Wyoming to Qcell’s new solar manufacturing plant in Georgia, making it the largest such project in the Western Hemisphere. For a full list of all this, here’s my Parachute post on jobs, jobs, and more jobs.
All this is just the start. We’re at $1.1 trillion of investments today in the clean energy transition. McKinsey predicts that we need to be at $9.2 trillion annual average spend if we are to get to net zero by 2050. There’s a long way to go, but as someone who’s spent my entire career at the intersection of cities x climate x capital - I can’t wait to see the fruits of this investment coming to a street near you and me!
Community Shout Outs
🌎 Climate Tech Cities
NY Climate Tech is expanding! We started as an 8-person dinner and now have almost 3,000 members in our community. We’ve had people across the world reach out to us to start their own chapters - so we’re launching a new Climate Tech Cities organization to kick of 2023! If you have friends who are interested in becoming chapter leads, please share the word! Here’s to a global network of local communities making a positive impact!
👩🏻💻Seed Consulting Group
Seed Consulting Group is a volunteer-run non-profit that offers pro-bono consulting services to sustainability organizations. They started in LA in 2014 and recently opened a chapter in NYC. We worked with them in the Fall, and they’re interested in working with any non-profit sustainability organizations in NYC or the wider East Coast during their upcoming spring project cycle, kicking off in March. If you’re interested in getting help for your organization or volunteering, reach out to Connor Nolan connornolan@seedcg.org or Holden Mackey holden.mackey@seedcg.org.
🙋🏽♀️ Community Board Applications
Community Board applications are live! If you’re interested in getting more involved with local government, learn more about what Community Boards do and consider applying using their online application form.
Events This Week
🪴 PLANT-O-RAMA 2023: Mon, Jan 30
🌏 Another Skin: Climate Adaptation and Accountability: Tue, Jan 31
🏞 Ambiguous Territory: Architecture, Landscape and the Postnatural: Wed, Feb 1
🥗 Universal Food Security: How to End Hunger While Protecting the Planet: Wed, Feb 1
🚀 Our Incredible Future NOW.: Thu, Feb 2
0️⃣ Journey to Net-Zero: The Role of Carbon Capture: Thu, Feb 2
🍺 Climate Tech First Fridays: Fri, Feb 3
✊ How to Save a Planet (Before it is Too Late): Sun, Feb 5
Read on for more details about this week’s happenings and upcoming events this month
Upcoming Events
💨 Equinor Supply Chain Expo – New York City: Tue, Feb 7
👩💻 Green Careers Event - "non-STEM" Careers in Sustainability: Tue, Feb 7
📣 Climate Careers in Marketing with Climatebase x USV: Tue, Feb 7
🥙 Transition in the Food Industry: A Solutions Approach: Wed, Feb 8
🏳️🌈 Out in Climate - NYC February Happy Hour: Thu, Feb 9
⚡️ New York State of Energy: Hybrid Forum: Thu, Feb 9
🤝 NYU’s 13th Annual Social Innovation Symposium: Better Together: Fri, Feb 10
🧘♀️ NYC Women in Climate Investing & Finance - Wellness & Yoga: Sat, Feb 11
🎲 Climate Fresk at Eat Offbeat (Chelsea Market): Wed, Feb 15
🌐 Just and Sustainable Economy Gathering- NYC: Wed, Feb 15
🍻 Green Drinks Brooklyn: Wed, Feb 15
🏗 From Field to Form: An Intro to Building with Plants and Earth: Wed, Feb 15
🌏 The Role of Carbon Capture in Meeting Net-Zero Carbon Goals: Thu, Feb 16
✊ How to Save a Planet (Before it is Too Late): Thu, Feb 16
📖 Bookmaking with Bioplastics: Collage, Fuse, Weave: Sun, Feb 19
🌎 SILC's Sustainability Professionals Networking Event: Tue, Feb 21
Events This Week
🪴 PLANT-O-RAMA 2023
When: Mon, Jan 30th from 6:00 PM to Wed, Jan 31st 4:00 PM
Where: DAY 1: Monday, January 30, Online / DAY 2: Tuesday, January 31, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 990 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11225
PLANT-O-RAMA 2023 is back "in person" at Brooklyn Botanic Garden! Monday evening, January 30, 2023, 6pm Keynote talk on ZOOM. Tuesday, January 31, 9am-4pm: Speakers, Trade Show & Jobs Fair at BBG. $45 TICKET for all talks. Recordings of all talks will be available to ticket holders for at least a year. FREE ADMISSION to Trade Show & Jobs Fair. No ticket required.
🌏 Another Skin: Climate Adaptation and Accountability
When: Tue, Jan 31st from 4:15 PM to 6:00 PM
Where: Heyman Center for the Humanities, 74 Morningside Dr, New York, NY 10027
Life in the Anthropocene is structured by racial hierarchies, even as people recognize the obstacles racial thinking poses to surviving climate change. This tension begs the question: How do race and climate change interact with one another, and why does it matter? Sarah E. Vaughn addresses this question by analyzing the ways people talk about race, and in many cases - avoid the subject entirely - in order to make sense of what climate adaptation projects can offer them. It is informed by ethnography, interviews, and archival research she conducted between 2009 and 2019 as the coastal South American nation-state Guyana, embarked on the climate adaptation of its large earthen dam system.
🏞 Ambiguous Territory: Architecture, Landscape and the Postnatural
When: Wed, Feb 1st from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Where: Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway, New York, NY 10010
The writers and designers in this collection are among the most thoughtful architects, artists, landscape architects, and theorists working today. The editors organized these essays and works of art and design around three territories: the atmospheric, the biologic, and the geologic. Each cluster of essays is further framed by forewords and afterwords, which draw individual points of view into a larger articulation of what an ambiguous territory might be and how it operates. Ambiguous Territory emerged from a symposium and exhibition held at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2017, and exhibitions at the University of Virginia and Pratt Manhattan Gallery in 2018, and at Ithaca College in 2019. The conversations that arise in this book are inquisitive and critically engaged. They pressure assumptions we routinely make about what constitutes meaningful and principled perspectives in architecture, landscape architecture, and art. Both the texts and the work take on some of the trickiest issues of our time.
🥗 Universal Food Security: How to End Hunger While Protecting the Planet
When: Wed, Feb 1st from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: 151 W 30th St, 151 West 30th Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10001
Join Triple Helix for an exciting discussion and drinks with author Glenn Denning, Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, to celebrate the launch of his book "Universal Food Security: How to End Hunger While Protecting the Planet." What would it take to achieve a genuinely food-secure world - one without hunger or malnutrition, where everyone gets to consume the right quantity and quality of food to live a healthy, active, and productive life? Bringing about such a future requires transforming how our food is grown, managed, and distributed. From production to consumption, food systems must be sustainable, halting environmental degradation and even repairing the damage we have previously done.
🚀 Our Incredible Future NOW.
When: Thu, Feb 2nd from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Where: Tishman Auditorium, 66 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10011
Creatives have always had an unparalleled power and impact on the world. But the urgent need for this superpower to be ignited, inspired and re-channeled into designing entire new systems and ideas has never been more needed. Our Incredible Future NOW event will catapult you into this new world of infinite possibility, reinvigorate you with energy and optimism, to use your visionary skills to rethink everything. Join us for this fast-paced series of talks from those maverick creative action-makers across multiple disciplines who are moving us from yet more words, pledges and pacts to a fast moving conveyor belt of actual change. Those brave enough to create what’s next.
0️⃣ Journey to Net-Zero: The Role of Carbon Capture
When: Thu, Feb 2nd from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
Where: NYU School of Law, Faculty Library, 40 Washington Square S., New York, NY 10012
Net-Zero is not Zero. Public and private decarbonization initiatives incorporate carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) into their pathways. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provides significant tax benefits to permanent carbon sequestration and net zero pledges by corporations typically rely on some form of CCUS in the future. Yet CCUS technology is still in its infancy, the capital required to move the industry to scale is enormous, and skeptics perceive a lack of transparency and that its use could diminish ambitions to transition away from fossil fuels. Our panel of experts will discuss the status, prospects and challenges of CCUS.
🍺 Climate Tech First Fridays
When: Fri, Feb 3rd from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: Belvedere Lounge NYC, 77 E 7th St, New York, NY 10003, USA
This Friday in the East Village is the monthly First Friday Meetup for people working on climate! Join us at Belvedere Lounge NYC on 7th street (a new location for us!) for an evening of great conversations!
✊ How to Save a Planet (Before it is Too Late)
When: Sun, Feb 5th from 2:00 PM to 3:15 PM
Where: Annex of Community Church, 24 East 35th Street 3rd Floor, NY, NY 10016
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a mass movement that is bringing people together to avoid total climate breakdown. This talk will (a) lay out the climate science that drives our urgency to act and (b) describe how we use nonviolent direct action to demand change from government, corporations, and media. We welcome you if you want to just learn about the state of the earth’s climate. We will love you if you join Extinction Rebellion to fight for it. We need everyone, whether or not you are in a position to perform direct action yourself.
Join the Fun!
Submit Events
We know all of you are cooking up great events that highlight the latest and greatest in our collective effort to save our city - and our planet! 🌍 We would love to spread the word. Please share any event details and we'll add them to the list.
Share Your Ideas
We're excited to grow the Climate Tech community in cities across the globe! What started as an 8-person mid-pandemic outdoor dinner has since morphed into a 3,000+ strong and ever-growing group of rockstars trying to change the world. We aim to be a community resource - built for and by our community. Share your thoughts!