Duke Convenes Experts to Forge Path for Climate Investment
The second annual “From Billions to Trillions” brought together leaders across numerous sectors to discuss the changing landscape of climate finance.
The world needs more energy, with fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Meeting this fundamental challenge will require large and growing investments in both public and private capital.
Duke University’s "From Billions to Trillions: Catalyzing Private Investment in Climate Solutions" summit explored how to transform billions of dollars of public capital into the trillions of dollars of private investment necessary to help solve the world’s climate challenges.
Speaking to an audience of more than 500, leaders from finance, government, industry and academia unpacked challenges and explored potential solutions in conversations with Duke faculty on April 9. Building on a successful summit last year, the gathering tackled the critical question of how to unlock massive private sector funding needed to accelerate a sustainable, low-carbon future.
Several key themes emerged:
The global energy transition must balance a core set of values: sustainability, affordability, reliability and security. “Fundamentally, the best strategy for climate resilience is inclusive growth and development,” said Alix Peterson Zwane, director of research and engagement strategy at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. “The challenge we face is not one in which we lower our ambitions around growth, but one in which we accommodate new ways of achieving those growth rates relative to what we've done in the past.”
Speakers throughout the day broadly agreed that money exists for these efforts, with challenges centering on how to incentivize investors to spend it on low-carbon development solutions. While sharing their own innovative investment strategies and technologies, speakers called for new forms of capital and partnerships with the public sector and philanthropy to scale up energy and climate solutions.
Rising energy demand in the United States creates challenges and opportunities. Data centers that power artificial intelligence—as well as the electrification of transportation and other economic sectors—are driving the spike in demand. Benjamin Schwartz, managing head of infrastructure partnerships and policy at OpenAI, framed energy supply as a matter of global competitiveness in the race to lead on AI. As other speakers pointed out, that presents a dual challenge of meeting current and future demand while transitioning to cleaner energy.
Several tech companies have floated the idea of building their own power generation for data centers, although that plan is not as efficient as connecting to the power grid, said Jeff Bladen, head of energy at Verrus. Bladen made the case that "we need to best use the grid we have while building the grid we need," citing a recent analysis on grid flexibility from the Nicholas Institute.
Student Perspectives on the Summit
Uncertainty over U.S. federal policy is impeding the flow of private capital to clean energy and climate projects. The 2024 “From Billions to Trillions” summit centered on how to use billions of dollars committed through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and other federal legislation to catalyze private investment in decarbonization efforts. A lot can change in a year.
At the 2025 summit, speakers noted the future of the IRA’s tax incentives is in doubt as Congress prepares its next budget. The Trump administration has also frozen grants and loan programs that are part of the law. Meanwhile, fluctuating U.S. trade policy threatens to raise prices for raw materials and manufactured products necessary for large infrastructure projects.
“When you take all of that together, I would say we probably have about 20 percent of projects that say we are not moving forward in this market,” said Taite McDonald, a partner at Holland & Knight. “Where we stand right now is the market is going to be increasingly fragile.”
Opportunities for bipartisan consensus on energy still exist in the current political environment. The Trump administration has made “American energy dominance” one of its top priorities. While its focus primarily centers on increasing fossil fuel production, many of the policies needed to meet rising energy demand would also support clean energy solutions.
“Energy is a very pragmatic thing,” said David Crane, who served as undersecretary for infrastructure at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Biden administration. “Permitting reform, transmission, nuclear—there’s a lot that [Democrats and Republicans] could agree on if they want to, so there is hope for collaboration.”
How the Biden administration implemented the IRA could also lead to bipartisan cooperation in upcoming budget negotiations. As several speakers noted, roughly three-quarters of clean energy manufacturing investments spurred by the IRA’s incentives were made in Republican-held congressional districts.
Reform of federal permitting and the National Environmental Policy Act is essential to speeding the energy transition and bringing power online more quickly. Few ideas came up more frequently across the spectrum of speakers. Whether a company wants to build a natural gas pipeline or transmission lines to connect a solar farm to the grid, the federal approval process currently stretches on for multiple years.
Permitting reform came close to reality in the last Congress and has drawn broad support from clean energy advocates, as well as the oil and gas industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While reform could lead to some additional fossil fuel production, an estimated 80–90 percent of projects waiting to connect to the grid are renewable energy.
“The direction of travel and economics of clean energy is much better than the direction of travel and economics of fossil fuels right now,” said Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “So if you make it much easier to build all energy infrastructure, I'm willing to make the bet that that's mostly going to yield more clean energy.”
Duke University stands ready to put knowledge and science in service of society to help move climate financing forward. University leaders emphasized Duke’s role in driving evidence-based policy, fostering collaboration, prioritizing education and convening essential conversations such as “From Billions to Trillions.”
“Advancing climate finance will require multi-disciplinary expertise in capital markets, climate science, technology and policy,” said Duke University President Vincent Price. “By combining the wide-ranging and world-leading expertise of Duke’s faculty with the accomplishments and reach of our global network of alumni and other partners, Duke is well prepared to lead in this domain.”
“Climate change is clearly not going away; in fact, it's only getting more urgent,” added Toddi Steelman, Duke’s vice president and vice provost for climate and sustainability. “There are going to be many places where climate work is going to be difficult to carry out in the future. But Duke University will not be one of these places. We will carry on with our Climate Commitment, and we are eager to do so.”
This year’s “From Billions to Trillions” summit was a collaboration of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability; Fuqua School of Business; Sanford School of Public Policy; and Nicholas School of the Environment. The event was designed to make the most of Duke’s academic assets and convening power to accelerate climate solutions, in alignment with the Duke Climate Commitment.
