Yet there are reasons for hope.
Clean energy is increasingly the cheapest, most reliable path to prosperity for working people and their families. While the far-right sells false promises of energy dominance through fossil fuels, progressive governments are proving that deploying renewable energy and industrial decarbonization provide a real path to better jobs, lower costs, and a more secure future.
To explore these trends, the Center for American Progress, the Roosevelt Institute, Instituto E+, and the Labour Climate and Environment Forum convened policy and civil society leaders at Climate Week NYC from the United States, Brazil, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Where governments once relied primarily on voluntary mechanisms to reduce carbon pollution, they are now stepping up to build strategic sectors in the clean economy—from batteries and heat pumps to steel, solar panels, and the supply chains that support them. At the convening, expert participants shared lessons from their national industrial strategies, discussed bold solutions to overcome supply-chain and labor challenges, and outlined their vision for a clean energy future.
This article discusses five key policy recommendations that emerged from the convening to guide the path forward.
1. Enact and protect forward-looking policies that invest in emerging technology and industrial emissions reductions
“Industrial policy must go hand-in-hand with energy policy at the domestic and international levels. Brazil’s industrial strategy requires effective coordination and integrated planning across power, transport, technology, and manufacturing sectors.” – Rosana Santos, Instituto E+
Investing in innovative technology is key to building the clean economy of the future. Since taking office, the Trump administration has clawed back more than $3.7 billion in federal funding for cutting-edge projects that were set to support the deployment of clean energy and emissions reduction technologies across the country. Halting these investments will cost the United States for years to come in the form of lost wages, lost innovation, and lost energy security.
But governments around the world are taking a different approach, leveraging international capital to incentivize high-impact projects in key industries that support both manufacturing and climate interests. Brazil’s national industrial decarbonization strategy, for example, is expected to mobilize more than $3 billion in co-financing to accelerate low-emissions industrial solutions in heavy industries such as cement, steel, chemicals, glass, and aluminum. Recognizing that innovative green technology can provide a competitive advantage for both reindustrialization and job growth, President Lula da Silva’s administration is positioning Brazil to lead the next generation of renewables-powered industry.
2. Build clean, abundant power systems that accommodate heavy industry without skyrocketing the burden on residential ratepayers
“We cannot have a durable industrial policy in our country if our energy supply and costs don’t meet the mark.” – Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D-IL)
Generating more clean power is essential as global electricity demand is accelerating rapidly. Extreme weather events—including this year’s potentially record-setting El Niño event—and the explosion of AI are driving unprecedented power use, straining aging electricity grids. The continued fallout from the Trump administration’s ongoing war with Iran is only making things worse, increasing the costs of fuels that power homes and the economy—both in the United States and around the world. Yet public pressure for immediate bill relief can tempt policymakers to curb clean investments that will ultimately keep energy bills lower over time. Governments must prioritize building grid capacity and infrastructure, while protecting households from unaffordable electric bills and rate spikes.
One way forward is to build “clean” into the policy priorities that are already top of mind for governments, such as energy security, economic competitiveness, and affordability. For instance, while Canada already has a strong footing with an 80 percent clean grid and some of the lowest electricity rates in the G7, Prime Minister Mark Carney recognized that doubling grid capacity is necessary to strengthen industrial competitiveness while keeping energy affordable. Progress is already underway to build the necessary infrastructure to connect Canada’s fragmented power grids across east-west provinces, expand regional transmission lines, and streamline permitting for major renewable and nuclear power additions.
3. Invest in skilled workforce pipelines and high-quality union jobs
“People don’t believe jobs will come to their area until they see the benefit of it. There must be more thought and investment put into the delivery of a skills pipeline, matching areas where we need re-skilling with new, good-quality jobs in clean energy.” – Megan Corton Scott, Labour Climate and Environment Forum
Industrial strategy must include a focus on creating good jobs, ensuring family-sustaining wages, and realigning workforce development programs to better meet the needs of students, businesses, and the economy today. Quick and timely job deployment is important to ensure people feel the impact of public policies in their daily lives, especially in communities facing high youth unemployment.
Coordinating and implementing complex decarbonization agendas requires geographically dispersed institutional capacity within government. In the United Kingdom, the Labour government’s Warm Homes Plan is an ambitious effort to tackle fuel poverty, allocating £15 billion to fund insulation upgrades, better heating systems, and low-carbon technologies to make homes more efficient. However, early implementation gaps underscore the need for matching spending with sufficient workforce capacity at local levels. Prime Minister Andy Burnham is laser-focused on regional economic growth. In order to effectively and properly build out a manufacturing base, the United Kingdom will need proactive investments—and collaboration with trade unions—to train and deploy skilled workers directly where projects are located and reindustrialization is needed.
4. Rebuild global collaboration and strategic trade policy
“We cannot rise to the level of urgency needed for the energy transition without international collaboration. We must consider what Canada is going to build at home, where we should partner, and where we need to buy in order to get the best advantage for both our country and for global stability.” – Rachel Doran, Clean Energy Canada
No single country possesses the full spectrum of resources, manufacturing capacity, knowledge, or capital needed to build out a clean energy economy in isolation. To make real progress on both the global energy transition and domestic industrial policy, countries must pursue “collective investments in resilience,” as Prime Minister Carney laid out at the January 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos. Success depends on working with allies and partners to strengthen coordination across industries and leverage comparative strengths across the global supply chain, whether in critical minerals, new technologies, or financing.
However, politicians must navigate two major challenges to deepen collaboration: understandable concern about the offshoring of jobs and capabilities, and rising geopolitical fragmentation pushing nations toward self-reliance as a national security imperative. To overcome these barriers, trade policies should strike a balance between enabling countries to develop their own clean industrial policies, while establishing productive economic ties that advance shared prosperity and decarbonization goals.
5. Structure clean energy policies to make everyday life more affordable and strengthen local economies, and properly communicate the benefits of these policies to the public
“If we are not striving to make life better for working people, then we are failing. Clean energy policies can and must be built to create good, union jobs, lift up communities, and not place a burden on families’ expenses.” – Mike Williams, Center for American Progress
As household budgets are squeezed and energy bills continue to rise, policymakers must design clean energy investments to drive economic growth, create new opportunities for communities, and lower household costs. That case grows much stronger when those policies are constructed with standards to support high-quality job creation, local community investment, and reforms and protections put in place to keep energy bills at a reasonable cost.
This does not mean that every country should rely on a one-size-fits-all approach to policy design or to communicating its value proposition. In Brazil, where renewable power already costs a fraction of carbon-intensive alternatives, leaders can highlight the undeniable business case for clean energy as an engine for economic growth. In the United Kingdom, the priority is showing that clean energy investments can revitalize local economies and former industrial heartlands alongside existing industries, rather than at their expense. In Canada, where global trade uncertainty and U.S. tariffs remain top of mind, messaging can focus on building domestic industrial capacity at home, while making the case that building a clean energy economy alongside global allies makes communities more resilient to external shocks. The upshot for all is that transitioning toward a clean energy economy is going in the direction of creating more wealth for countries, more opportunity for communities, and more security for citizens.
Conclusion
The time to reimagine clean industrial policy is now. So, too, is the imperative for bold, progressive leadership to deploy innovative green technology, strengthen critical industries, and ensure every new project upholds standards for and delivers high-quality, family-sustaining jobs.
The lessons from Climate Week NYC show how balancing domestic clean manufacturing with new forms of global collaboration and trade policy can put countries on a better path toward shared prosperity and long-term security.
The author would like to thank Rep. Nikki Budzinski, Mike Williams, Rosana Santos, Megan Corton Scott, Rachel Doran, Todd Tucker, and fellow experts from Global Progress’ Climate Crisis and Global Green Industrial Policy Working Group for their contributions and participation in this event.