Enabling conditions for the energy transition
Clean energy technologies are now increasingly viable and cost-competitive.
But political, cultural, economic and informational systems have become major constraints to progress.
It is no longer just about winning support, but winning the right support to avoid backlash.
Political actors with fossil fuel interests and others have successfully framed climate policy as elitist or culturally hostile, increasingly turning energy decisions into symbolic political battlegrounds in the Global North.
On the ground, this translates for example into the strategic use of technical, regulatory, and permitting processes to block clean energy deployment.
With a volatile electoral turnover, deployment projects also end up being delayed, revisited or reversed with changes in leadership. The energy transition has become a polarizing issue.
The energy transition has become a polarizing issue.
External conditions and political capacity imperil the energy transition.
Inflation, high energy prices, and uneven regional cost of living have created political vulnerability with governments facing pressure to deliver short-term economic relief while advancing energy transition goals.
Despite clean energy being cheaper and the clean energy sector expanding its footprint quickly, it has not developed the coordinated political or communications strength the fossil fuel industry has.
Due to fragmented coordination, the competition between the fossil fuel industry and clean energy remains.
Visibility does not guarantee legitimacy, popularity or persuasion.
Political and economic debates currently unfold in a fragmented information environment: traditional media has weakened, institutions have lost trust, and digital platforms reward speed and conflict.
With the rapid rise of generative AI, the cost of producing persuasive, high-volume content (accurate or not) has also fallen sharply, making it easier to tailor, amplify and simulate manipulative narratives at scale.
In this volatile information environment, influence now depends less on facts or authority and more on distribution, speed, and perceived authenticity.
Success today relies on conditions– coalitions, capacities, alliances, and power – that can take years to develop
Philanthropy’s near term lens means these conditions are often overlooked and undervalued
Climate communications evolved for an era of awareness-building or moralistic persuasion.
The transition now requires durability, coordination, and political resilience.
What we learned
Broad coalitions outperform narrow alignment
Durability matters as much as speed
Credible alternatives matter alongside accountability
Messenger and distribution matter as much as message
Early engagement can prevent future backlash
System’s level interventions can outperform isolated tactics
How do we generate support for climate action?
Persuasion
If the goal is to build public support, the natural focus becomes changing hearts and minds through evidence, storytelling and message testing.
Visibility
If the goal is to build public support, success depends on making climate impossible to ignore through media attention, awareness campaigns and cultural moments.
Opposition
If the goal is to build public support, removing barriers means confronting those actively undermining progress and raising the political cost of resistance.
How do we make climate progress durable?
Conditions
If the goal is durable progress, the priority becomes shaping the political, cultural and informational conditions that make ambitious action easier to achieve and harder to reverse.
Coalitions
If the goal is durable progress, success depends on broadening ownership so that different parts of society champion the transition for their own reasons.
Power
If the goal is durable progress, lasting change requires building the capacity of those who stand to benefit from the transition to shape decisions and defend progress over time.
Our strategic approach has evolved
Our four strategic pillars focus on:
Reduce polarization for the energy transition
Act early where ambition exists
Strengthen information systems
Build political capacity of the energy sector
Together, our pillars reinforce one another:
Reduced polarization lowers friction, early engagement protects ambition, information systems stabilize narratives and stronger economic actors shape policy and markets. They also address constraints across geographies and ultimately make clean energy easier to advance and harder to reverse.
Reduce polarization in the energy transition
Theory of change
Reducing the likelihood that clean energy decisions are cast as culture-war symbols and proactively embedding them in widely shared economic priorities will enable steadier implementation and longer-lasting policy gains across election cycles.
What this looks like in practice
- Developing durable narratives around jobs, competitiveness, security and independence.
- Building broad coalitions and credible messengers that break up opposition coalitions.
- Anticipating and defusing escalation before it consolidates.
Act early where political ambition exists
Theory of change
Supporting locally rooted actors who embed clean energy within national development, competitiveness and security frameworks before polarization consolidates will help sustain political ambition and enable steadier implementation.
What this looks like in practice
- Funding domestic policy and communications leadership.
- Integrating transition priorities into national development planning.
- Sequencing reforms to avoid unnecessary politicization.
- Building out authentic and credible messenger benches.
- Identifying potential backlash risks before they harden into organized resistance.
Strengthen information systems and trust
Theory of change
Strengthening access to distribution channels, trusted intermediary networks, and shared learning systems, will better equip the climate ecosystem to shape narratives and stave off misinformation and narrative volatility.
What this looks like in practice
- Building diversified distribution networks beyond single platforms.
- Partnering with CommsHub for cross-regional learning.
- Improving early detection and response capacity as AI and platform incentives evolve.
Build the political capacity of the energy sector
Theory of change
Supporting efforts to catalyze the transformation of the clean energy trade sector to be more politically and culturally influential will unlock new revenue streams, advocacy and marketing muscle that accelerate energy deployment.
What this looks like in practice
- Supporting efforts to strengthen clean trade’s political intelligence, media and communications capabilities.
- Supporting coalition-building and industry coordination.
- Supporting reliable non-philanthropic revenue.
Change model
Geographic context
Our strategy is not a playbook; it's a lens. This map shows how the same strategic principles might be applied across different political contexts. The country examples are intended to illustrate the approach, not prescribe a single model for action.
United States
Strategic challenge:
Clean energy remains politically coded, while fossil incumbents retain greater coordination and influence over policy and public debate.
Tactics:
- Build the political capacity of the clean energy economy to become a durable force in public debate.
- Broaden ownership by engaging businesses, workers and communities that benefit directly from deployment.
- Reduce polarization by embedding clean energy within competitiveness, affordability and national security.
Germany
Strategic challenge:
The transition has become entangled with cost-of-living anxiety, government overreach and partisan identity, making implementation politically fragile.
Tactics:
- Reframe clean energy around affordability, energy security and industrial competitiveness.
- Strengthen center-right and business voices that can champion the transition from within their own constituencies.
- Build political permission for implementation by connecting renewables to regional prosperity and economic resilience.
Indonesia
Strategic challenge:
Rapid development and rising energy demand risk locking in fossil expansion before clean energy gains broad political and economic ownership.
Tactics:
- Position clean energy as a driver of industrial competitiveness and economic modernization.
- Build broad coalitions across government, business and civil society before polarization takes hold.
- Strengthen locally trusted voices that connect the transition to jobs, investment and energy access.
Global
Strategic challenge:
Some of the biggest constraints on climate progress don't stop at national borders, but philanthropy often does.
Tactics:
- Support capacity building that help the field navigate fragmented and AI-driven media environments.
- Build shared infrastructure that enables learning, experimentation and coordination across regions.
- Invest in global capabilities that individual country portfolios cannot efficiently build alone.
Brazil
Strategic challenge:
Climate and conservation remain politically vulnerable when they are perceived as conflicting with agriculture, rural livelihoods and national development.
Tactics:
- Support rural, agricultural and faith-based organizations to develop environmental agendas rooted in local priorities.
- Embed conservation and clean energy within agricultural productivity, resilience and rural prosperity.
- Expand center-right and regional leadership on climate to create broader political ownership.
Japan
Strategic challenge:
Climate remains relatively non-partisan, but weak constituency ownership could leave ambition vulnerable as economic and geopolitical pressures intensify.
Tactics:
- Anchor clean energy in national security, energy independence and economic resilience.
- Build broad institutional ownership across business, local government and civil society.
- Strengthen trusted information systems that reinforce the transition as a matter of national interest rather than political identity.
What success looks like
Political and social conditions in key geographies reliably support a rapid, sustained energy transition
By 2030
Political and economic leaders in priority markets predominantly frame and advance the energy transition as a strategy for regional prosperity and industrial competitiveness, effectively de-coupling it from identity-based political conflict.
By 2030
Mitigation-aligned actors are no longer structurally disadvantaged in the information environment. They help define the narrative terrain rather than react to it as indicated by improved distribution reach among persuadable audiences, faster containment of misinformation spikes, and durable cross-regional coordination on narrative strategy and AI-era experimentation.
By 2032
Energy transition milestones are delivered through routine administrative and market mechanisms, treating clean energy as the default for new development and investment, actively managing the decline or transition of legacy energy actors, and remaining resilient to national political volatility.
