Just a few years ago, a net zero future felt almost certain. From the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States to the European Green New Deal, major economies leaped forward in a burst of green optimism. Even limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius seemed possible.

However, 2025 feels quite different.

An emerging array of tariffs is set to complicate the economics of low-carbon projects; geopolitical tensions have led many governments to refocus investment on new defense imperatives, perhaps to the detriment of transition spend; and more broadly, energy resilience is dominating national and corporate agendas, meaning natural gas and nuclear are rising to prominence.

Net zero, it seems, is entering a reset. And the data bears that out.

Though clean energy investment totaled an impressive $2.1 trillion in 2024, growth in spending roughly halved compared to the three years prior. Even as investment in solar and wind continues to increase, spending on emerging transition technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen dropped by 23% in 2024.

If this reset gathers momentum, the implications will prove severe in the short- to medium-term. It will have a range of adverse impacts, from accelerating climate change to undermining the adoption of critical transition technologies.

Getting net zero back on track will not be straightforward. Yet there is still time for a course correct. This will require a renewed emphasis on energy resilience, one that refocuses limited resources on key technologies while removing barriers to what is already profitable.

For governments, it is important to retain their long-term focus on delivering net zero — whatever the short-term priorities around profitability that shape corporate thinking. That starts with enabling technologies.

Grid modernization, for instance, must remain a key priority. Not only does it support ongoing electrification, but also cuts across all forms of energy and electrification trends. Sustaining grid modernization efforts will require a range of policy decisions, from accelerating permitting to enable grid connections to increased community stakeholder engagement, to ensure projects are delivered swiftly. In the UK for example, the Planning and Infrastructure Bill will be critical to enabling the “Clean Power by 2030” ambition. The bill will prioritize connections to projects that are ready to go rather than speculative ones under the former “first come, first served” process. In tandem with investment in grid infrastructure, countries and their respective regulators should continue to promote energy storage solutions, from batteries to pumped hydro, to address the challenge of intermittency as renewables gain momentum.

These approaches will also accelerate some of today’s most commercially viable and competitive energy technologies: solar PV and wind. Too often, they can become stalled by lengthy permitting processes and regulatory hurdles. Clearing these barriers can help keep renewable capacity on track to triple by the end of the decade [1] while also bolstering resilience against surging energy demands and global instability.

Other sectors, however, will find it harder to electrify. Heavy industry, aviation and shipping all contribute significantly to global emissions yet remain difficult to abate. For example, in global aviation, as of 2024, sustainable aviation fuel production represented only about 0.5% of global jet fuel use. These sectors must remain the focus of government policymaking and, especially, increasingly limited public funding.

The challenge for heavy industry is linked to the fact that emerging technologies like CSS and hydrogen still face fundamental challenges around technology maturity, affordability and ability to scale up. As a result, government policymakers will need to do much more to de-risk these projects and stimulate consumer demand. This will be challenging given the macroeconomic environment. Historically, governments have focused subsidy support on encouraging the supply of hydrogen. However, given the paucity of final investment decisions in the sector, governments may need to focus more on stimulating demand for hydrogen. Such investment will prove essential for nations seeking to foster domestic options for low-carbon industrial production in an era of unstable global trade.

While this “reset” presents challenges for emerging technologies, nevertheless, expect new investment plays that span the sphere of interest for governments and business alike, such as transport infrastructure clusters.

Ports, for instance, are the next wave of industrial clusters to electrify with their multi-modal transport connections for ships, trains and drayage. The cruise industry, for instance, is already pursuing decarbonization through adoption of shore power. Ports are also the staging ground for the deployment of offshore wind, and, for governments, are key hubs for economic growth, stimulating local employment and attracting private sector investment. As strategic nodes for global trade, their electrification will provide an additional layer of resilience for supply chains while enabling the growth of offshore wind farms or connections to hydrogen hubs. Electrification is readily viable. In the U.S., the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have been leaders in electrification, with the Port of Los Angeles the first in the world to electrify a container ship in 2004.

There is a complex tapestry of geopolitics, climate change and energy investment. As we enter this period of resetting, governments, business and investors must respond with a new posture of energy resilience. They should seek to maintain long-term investment in competitive technologies while taking a proactive approach to sectors most vulnerable to the current slowdown. Getting this right will not only deliver economic growth and security but put an accelerated net zero back in sight — even in an era of increasing instability.