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🌎 The Undercurrent: The Climate Fight is Going Private

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By Abigail Bassett 

There’s a quiet surge of privatization taking over the climate fight, and it has broad implications for how the world tackles the climate crisis. Over the past few years, everything from climate-related data to finance and infrastructure has shifted from public stewardship toward private ownership. What was once the domain of governments and intergovernmental institutions is increasingly being wrapped in commercial dress, carrying significant implications for the future, equity, accountability, and the direction of global climate policy. 

Over the last few years, everyone from satellite operators to equity funds has increasingly taken up bits of the climate fight and privatized them. What began as a way to leverage innovation and efficiency is quietly turning into a transfer of authority over who monitors, funds, and profits from climate action. 

Nowhere is that clearer than in the recent developments over at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the US. Just this week, Bloomberg's Weather Watch newsletter highlighted the US government's growing reliance on private weather data, a shift that could upend decades of open, global forecasting cooperation. 

NOAA recently made its largest-ever commercial data purchase, paying $24 million to Colorado-based PlanetiQ for satellite readings that it once collected in-house. This happened against the backdrop of extensive cuts to both budget and staff under Trump 2.0, which has forced the organization to rely more heavily on private vendors, particularly those with deep ties to the Administration. As Bloomberg reports, incoming NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs, of Sharpiegate fame from his previous stint at the agency, is bringing along former PlanetiQ lobbyist Taylor Jordan as his deputy. 

The larger concern, of course, is that these ties will result in walling off information vital to global forecasts. As Bloomberg reports, this commercialization could "ruin global weather forecasting systems and harm poorer countries as well as increase the occurrence of weather-data profiteering” –citing an example of Japanese firms that sell hyper-local forecasts to traders. 

Beyond this, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that nature itself is rapidly becoming an asset class. Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP), a private equity firm, raised $401 million for "restoration and mitigation" projects to buy wetlands, streams, and habitats, and then sell credits to developers facing regulatory obligations. In Brazil, a reforestation start-up called Mombak secured funding through a partnership with commercial bank Santander and the national development bank BNDES, leveraging the country's new climate fund and selling credits as offsets, according to Reuters. 

Then there's the way in which private capital is shaping climate innovation and infrastructure. In March, E&E News reported that Morgan Stanley forecast that a 3-degree warming scenario was likely in the coming decades, but that it would create a $235 billion growth opportunity in the air conditioning market. 

Some scholars describe this as the "financialization of nature” and in some ways it parallels the 2008 housing crisis, wherein essential resources become financial assets and lead to increased inequality, market-driven failures, and a focus on profit over social and ecological well-being. In the current environment, carbon and biodiversity credits and financial instruments are packaged, sold, and then diffused and detached from real-world outcomes, but are highly profitable in the short term. 

Yet not all privatization is bad–as it can accelerate climate innovation, especially in clean technology. For example, Morgan Stanley’s Climate Impact Fund led a $60 million investment round for Corvus Energy, a battery systems company working on decarbonizing shipping, and multilateral development banks mobilized a record $134 billion in private climate finance in 2024 alone–most of it for projects that generate returns. The blended finance arrangements they use are designed to de-risk private participation in the projects. 

Perhaps the biggest concern with privatization for climate projects is the ever-present incentive for investors to chase short-term yields over long-term adaptation. When public agencies downsize or are forced to rely more on private, commercial sources, public expertise erodes and becomes further siloed. Democratic oversight thins significantly, and the line between regulator and contractor blurs. Privatization doesn't just shift costs, it shifts control over what data is collected, how it's interpreted, how it's shared, and who has access to it. 

Public contracts can often last decades, locking governments into terms written by investors. Privatized climate services and investments create natural winners and losers as wealthy countries and corporations can afford the premium goods and services, while poorer nations lose access to vital technology and datasets that underpin both climate adaptation and long-term resilience planning. 

Finally, and probably most importantly, once climate mitigation becomes a business and profit opportunity, governments could stop seeing it as less of a public duty. The more climate action becomes privatized, the easier it becomes for future administrations to claim that climate responsibility does not lie within their purview. 

Ultimately, the rise of private climate capital tells a story about who will own the future. Markets can fund speed and innovation, but they can’t replace accountability, transparency, or long-term vision. When weather data, forests, and resilience become profit centers, the public interest risks being priced out of the systems meant to protect it. The next phase of the climate fight will hinge on balance — ensuring that private money accelerates progress without capturing it. 

Check out some of the latest featured jobs below. If you don't see anything that speaks to you, you can always go to Climatebase to explore over 50,000 new climate jobs.

Aslan Renewables

“Aslan Renewables is on a mission to unlock Canada’s dormant small hydropower potential through modular, scalable power plants that deliver clean baseload energy.”

Lotus Engineering & Sustainability

“Lotus is a small, woman-owned sustainability consulting firm based out of Denver, Colorado.”

Revise Robotics

“Building a more circular electronics industry using AI-powered robots”

VELA-Transport

“VELA offers international freight 100% powered by the wind for a highly decarbonized, fast, reliable and cost-effi cient freight service.”

Transformations Community

“Accelerating global efforts for equitable, sustainable, and regenerative transformations.”

Project Drawdown

“Project Drawdown is the world’s leading guide for science-based climate solutions. ”

Carbon Business Council

“Reversing Climate Change”

KoBold Metals

“Leveraging AI to drive electrification and combat climate change.”

They are hiring across the following departments:

Carbon Mapper

“Tracking and reducing 80% of global methane and CO2 emissions.”

Sunairio

“Fast weather and climate modeling for dynamic energy markets.”

GlacierGrid

“GlacierGrid is a technology startup whose mission is to reduce the warming caused by cooling — refrigeration and air conditioning.”

Clean Crop

“Revolutionizing crop safety and reducing waste via electric-powered contaminant removal.”

PowerDash Inc.

"Enabling efficient renewable energy management and REC verification."”

Impulse Labs

“High-performance products empowering eco-friendly, whole-home electrification."

Solstice Power Technologies

“Empowering communities with easy access to shared solar energy solutions.”