We don't have the people to build what's needed

Solar panels don't install themselves. Heat pumps need skilled technicians. EV charging networks require electricians who understand the technology. Right now, there's a severe shortage of workers with these specialized skills.

This bottleneck is slowing deployment of clean energy infrastructure everywhere. Projects get delayed, costs rise, and quality suffers when there aren't enough qualified people to do the work properly.

Coal plants are closing, oil rigs are being decommissioned, and entire communities built around fossil fuel industries are facing economic collapse. Many of these workers have valuable skills that could transfer to clean energy, but the transition isn't happening fast enough or fairly enough.

Without deliberate intervention, we risk leaving millions of people behind — creating political resistance to climate action and wasting human capital we desperately need for the clean transition.

Climate technology needs brilliant minds — engineers who can design better batteries, scientists who can develop new materials, researchers who can solve complex problems. But too many talented people don't know about climate career opportunities or how to access them.

Meanwhile, climate tech companies struggle to find the specialized talent they need to scale their solutions. This talent shortage is limiting innovation and slowing the development of critical technologies.

Architects design buildings, engineers plan infrastructure, financiers allocate capital, and policymakers write regulations — all with massive climate implications. But most of these professionals lack the climate knowledge to make informed decisions.

This means we're building inefficient buildings, funding the wrong projects, and creating policies that don't work. The climate impact of these everyday professional decisions is enormous, but the people making them often don't have the tools to do better.