Investing in US Climate Technology Competitiveness

To decarbonize the economy—globally, and domestically in the United States—new technologies will need to be adopted across all sectors that are energy and carbon intensive. Clean energy technologies will be critical, such as renewable energy resources and batteries, but climate technologies go far beyond technologies that deliver or store clean energy or electricity. Technologies that enable the electrification of industry, facilitate the production of clean molecules, or capture carbon also can play an important role in decarbonizing the economy. In many cases, the question of who will dominate these technologies is still open, with all possibilities in play.

For many cleantech options, however, China has become highly competitive; for example, in the production of solar photovoltaics, batteries, and electric vehicles. These clean technologies often require a new set of critical minerals, the processing of which China also dominates.

Dependencies on critical resources in a time of geopolitical tension creates its own concerns. Chinese strength in the manufacturing of cleantech, in turn, is part of the country’s general competitiveness in industrial manufacturing, much of which gets exported to global markets.