WHERE CLIMATE MONEY MOVED

SIGNALS

Each point below is drawn from the items in this issue, which carry the sources.

1. The biggest private rounds went to round-the-clock clean power. Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $1 billion, Proxima Fusion €411 million, Antora Energy $550 million and Quaise Energy $134 million, and Google signed a 396 MW geothermal offtake with Fervo. Data-centre demand is cited in several of these deals.
2. Storage is being priced like infrastructure. Brookfield bought the battery developer Aypa from Blackstone at a $7 billion enterprise value, Aligned Climate Capital opened a $500 million distributed solar-and-storage fund, and BYD is localising storage assembly in Brazil ahead of grid auctions.
3. Nuclear companies are testing the public markets. Standard Nuclear priced its IPO below the proposed range, and Westinghouse filed confidentially for a listing. Demand exists, but the first pricing of the quarter came in low.
4. Rules loosened in the EU and US and tightened in the UK and China. The European Commission cut mandatory sustainability-reporting datapoints by more than 60% and proposed a slower decline in the ETS cap; the US EPA eased heavy-duty engine rules; the World Bank dropped its 45% climate-finance target. In the same window the UK fixed its seventh carbon budget and its CBAM rate, China issued its first climate-specific five-year plan, and Washington state joined the California–Quebec carbon market.
5. Hydrogen and carbon capture took the quarter's biggest reversals. Air Products cancelled a $4.5 billion Louisiana project, the US Energy Department terminated Plug Power's $1.66 billion loan guarantee, Heidelberg Materials paused its Edmonton capture plant with credits trading near C$45 against a C$170 assumption, and Thyssenkrupp moved to start its Duisburg plant without hydrogen. In each case the stated reason was cost: low carbon prices or expensive hydrogen. RWE's $1.22 billion exit from US offshore wind was about permitting instead.
6. Public climate funds are stretching existing capital rather than raising new money. The Green Climate Fund found more than $4 billion of capacity through balance-sheet reform after donor funding fell, and put €200 million of equity into an EIB green-bond vehicle. Blended funds in Southern Africa and Asia closed on public risk capital. Grant budgets are shrinking, as the UK's Congo Basin cuts show, so these funds are relying on leverage instead.