BiGS Actionable Intelligence:
BOSTON—Industry leaders navigating the global green energy transition face a new investment horizon clouded by U.S. trade and industrial policy shifts. While optimists point to broader market trends driving growth in clean energy regardless of political headwinds, skeptics remain uneasy about the sector’s near-term prospects amid ongoing trade uncertainty and policies favoring fossil fuels.
Such was the discussion at a symposium earlier this month hosted by Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society and the Berkeley Economy & Society Initiative.
The two organizations have created the Green Industrial Strategy (GISt) project, which draws together business leaders, policy experts, and academics to monitor and discuss green technology, industrial policy and investment around the world. Participants in the first-ever GISt symposium discussed private-sector innovation, effective government intervention and how policymakers can balance trade-offs and enable industries to deliver solutions at scale.
“The goal of this initiative is twofold: first, to understand the rapidly evolving landscape of green industrial strategy and its implications for businesses and policy, and second, to build a vibrant community of researchers dedicated to this critical issue,” said Harvard Business School Professor Gunnar Trumbull.
Participants were largely united in their confidence that rising energy demand, competitive technologies and public concern over climate change will sustain global growth in renewable energy, energy storage, clean transportation, and other green technology projects worldwide.
While doubts persist about the sustainability of the U.S. clean energy boom amid wavering policy support, many expressed views that the green energy takeoff in America has reached a point of no return, sparked by policy shifts that took place during the Biden administration. Several industry leaders pointed to recent momentum in the U.S. driving low-cost clean energy globally, regardless of political changes.
More worrying, they say, is that an escalating trade war could create disruption in supply chains and prices or restrictions on technology transfers that slow the energy transition not only in the United States, but around the world. Deepesh Nanda, CEO of India’s Tata Power Renewable Energy Limited, told The BiGS Fix that trade and security tensions have made countries wary of sharing advanced manufacturing processes.
“If in India, we want to expand our manufacturing capacity, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy to get technology for, say, the upstream work that you want to do in the case of solar,” he said. The CEO warned that if Chinese technology remains inaccessible due to government restrictions, it could hinder India’s large-scale energy transition. “Most countries are trying to have a control on the supply chain. If you don’t have control on your supply chain, then you can be just nipped off.”
Global Investment Boom
Global investment in the low-carbon energy transition has been rising consistently in recent years. It grew 11% in in 2024, according to Bloomberg’s Energy Transition Investment Trends 2025 report. China was the world’s largest investor in the energy transition last year, contributing $818 billion, which accounted for nearly 40% of the total investment worldwide. That boom has been supported by consistent long-term policies intended not only to mitigate climate change, but to try to position their economy with a competitive edge in emerging industries.
“Green industrial strategies today are focused on fostering competitive advantage,” said Jonas Meckling, a BiGS Fellow and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Momentum in the U.S.
Since 2022, the United States significantly increased its global clean energy investments, aiming to compete with China and the European Union in both clean energy leadership and industrial development. Historically, the U.S. lacked comprehensive green industrial policies, resulting in domestic manufacturing and supply chain gaps. However, legislation like the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act sought to close these gaps by incentivizing clean energy manufacturing and deployment.
Private investors responded. The U.S. share of global energy transition investment rose from 8.8% in 2022 to 16% by 2024, according to the Bloomberg report. Solar, wind, storage, electric vehicles (EVs), and other clean energy technologies saw a surge from recent investments.
In the solar industry, for example, nearly 50 gigawatts of new capacity was installed in 2024, a 21% increase from 2023 and the largest single-year addition by any energy technology in more than two decades, according to the Solar Energies Industries Association. Solar accounted for 66% of all new electricity-generating capacity added to the grid. Domestic manufacturing capacity grew 190%, from 14.5 gigawatts at the end of 2023 to 42.1 gigawatts by the close of 2024, with manufacturing expansion concentrated mainly in Georgia and Texas.
“Government policies have been instrumental in crafting frameworks that steer private investments toward a climate-friendly energy transition, sparking a significant response from business," Meckling said.
Will momentum slow?
Yet there are those who worry that the shifting policy landscape in the United States could slow the current momentum.
Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, described the past several months as “challenging from a transition standpoint” as the new administration takes a markedly different approach to energy.
“The new administration clearly has a view of more fossil-dependent resources and energy dominance, energy security, and less of an interest in the pure climate-related aspects,” Wolak told The BiGS Fix.
The changes being wrought by the Trump administration are just the latest episode in the tumultuous history of U.S. green industrial policy.
China’s dominance in global manufacturing, particularly its overcapacity in electric vehicles and clean energy technologies, is a key driver of the escalating trade war with the United States that began in the first Trump administration; continued under Biden, who placed 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, among other measures; and may again be escalating.
This year already, tariffs imposed by Trump are expected to destabilize prices for solar panels, electric vehicles, and wind turbines, threatening to slow clean energy adoption and delay decarbonization efforts. World Innovative Sustainable Solutions forecasts that, even taking into account the 90-day moratorium following the Trump administration’s sweeping April 2 tariff announcement, electric vehicle prices are set to rise by an average of 15% in the second quarter of 2025, while solar panel imports from major suppliers could plunge by more than 80% in some cases.
But just as policy shifts in Washington can have an impact on industry, the success of clean energy companies can also have an impact on policymakers who do not want to slow economic expansion.
Wolak points out that there remains a strong market and security case for renewables, including hydrogen, but it is still unclear which policies will be sustained or what new initiatives will emerge to support renewables.
“The booming market over the last two years has demonstrated the durability and benefits of clean energy expansion,” said another U.S. industry executive. “I’m optimistic about the industry's direction and supporting policies at the national and local levels.”