Narrate a future people actually want.
My work takes me into a lot of different rooms—some with conversations focused on the practical, some political, some intellectual. Many of these rooms are echo chambers, even when everyone in them is trying hard not to create yet another echo chamber.
I felt the pull of the echo chamber especially over the past month—and the power of The Myth of an Easy Energy Transition inside it.
I followed the industry roundtable that I recently covered in “The Day Before the Day After” with two days at a climate-and-energy invite-only discussion. That gathering reminded me of something important for all of you working to build an enduring strategy: A remarkable number of our influential stakeholders still process energy only through the lens of climate urgency.
And to shape what comes next, you need to understand both (a) why this frame remains so compelling to so many and (b) the new frame that is beginning to replace it.
Both of these things are true:
- A lot of your important stakeholders still approach energy policy through a climate-first lens.
- If you want an enduring strategy, you need to offer these stakeholders a broader, more constructive frame to approach energy, that still includes climate.
The first truth: The climate framing is still very relevant
Whether we like it or not, climate remains the primary entry point for talking about energy in many elite, academic, philanthropic, advocacy, and institutional settings. You and I can rationalize why that shouldn’t be. (After all, I wrote an entire book about that recently!) But we must reckon with how prominently the climate lens still shapes both the problems people prioritize and the range of solutions they consider. (For example: One funder at the climate-and-energy summit literally responded to my pragmatic view of the energy world with the following: “But if we don’t singularly prioritize climate, what if a coal solution was viable?” Indeed.)
Too many industry leaders make the mistake of treating the climate-first frame as either obviously sufficient or obviously obsolete. Neither is correct. If you are trying to lead well, you need to understand not just the limitations of the climate-first frame but its persistence as well. Understand its durability—so you can offer something more compelling to those still in its thrall.
The second truth: Successful leaders will have to operate beyond the climate frame
It’s hardly news that the current political environment is not organized primarily around emissions. Instead, policymakers have to be increasingly responsive to the electorate’s concerns on affordability, reliability, industrial capacity, energy security, geopolitics, and the practical difficulties of power demand growth. Climate still matters—but climate isn’t the only driver framing energy politics.
What I’m telling my clients: Don’t abandon climate language. Instead, nest it into a wider story about the world we live in—one about abundance and building, security and reliability, and innovation and what that can do for a community. Climate is part of that wider story—and you can craft a narrative that both appeals to these climate-first stakeholders but introduces them to your wider, more broadly appealing vision of the energy future.
As the climate frame weakens, fear fills the vacuum
Climate’s retreat as the dominant organizing principle around left-leaning energy politics has not automatically produced a healthier politics. (Sad, I know!) Instead, I see a new kind of fear-mongering filling the climatepocolypse vacuum. It is very easy to gin up fear around energy and the rapid technological change underway. It’s most obvious in how political operatives are talking about AI and data centers.
Climate-hawks and even pragmatic Democratic strategists are taking one of two tacks regarding the current Moment and the dominance of AI and data center conversations:
- Tack 1: Deflect. I’ve been surprised with the regular response I’ve received from climate and environmental activists to the expectation that data center power demand is changing the energy landscape: “We don’t even know if this power demand is real! Maybe it’s just a bubble!”
- Tack 2: Scare. The other abundant response: “The voting public is going to rise up against AI and data centers! They aren’t going to let these things raise energy prices, ruin their communities, and take away their jobs.”
Seize the day: The broader story must include a vision for the future
All this presents a huge opportunity for you! The entire energy political landscape is changing, and relevant players are often in denial or focusing on fear of the future. That leaves a tremendous opening for you to offer a compelling vision of the future. Yes, you should provide a broad, realistic narrative about the energy landscape that names the challenges and tradeoffs—but add a strong dash of vision to it!
Here’s how you can seize the day:
- Embrace the broadest energy narrative. Do not build your strategy around the hope that the climate-first frame will simply disappear. It will not, at least not on any timeline that helps you. You have important stakeholders who will continue to put climate first for the next few years, at a minimum. So build a vision that can include people who still hold that viewpoint while anchoring your strategy in something broader and more durable.
- Offer the more compelling vision. Narrate what’s happening in The Moment: the public concerns on affordability, the promise and peril of AI… Then point out all the upsides! We have a generational opportunity to build the energy system of the future. (See “Three Crazy Ideas” for more on this.) Develop language that can hold several truths at once: climate, abundance, reliability, competitiveness, jobs, innovation, and community agency. There’s no need to limit your vision to a false binary between the old story and the new pressures. We can address them both!
- Customize that vision for your operating community. As you do this, think carefully about the role of the communities where you are building projects and operating. Communities are not just obstacles to overcome nor just audiences for a message. When engaged effectively, communities are the allies and champions that the energy future needs. (See “Making ‘Behind the Meter’ More Rational” for more on this topic.)
- Bring stakeholders into the project design. A durable strategy creates room for communities to shape what their future looks like on their own terms. The organizations most likely to build successfully will be the ones that can connect a vision of the future to a project woven into the social fabric of the community. Not every community will use the same language, nor prioritize the same things.
To repeat: Don’t abandon talking about climate. Put climate inside your larger visionary narrative about building a future people actually want.
Making the most of The Moment
Join the conversation with other future-focused pragmatists!
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What’s your future got for us?
Tisha
