See more from Canary Media’s ​“Chart of the Week” column.

Not convinced the energy transition is actually happening? Take a look at how much cash is flowing toward fossil fuel–free technologies.

Investors poured a record amount of money into the energy transition last year: $2.3 trillion worldwide, according to new figures from research firm BloombergNEF. That number represents spending on everything from renewables and batteries to power grids and electric vehicles.

Global investment in the energy transition has broken records over and over again in recent years, and for good reason. Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries are fast and increasingly cheap to install. Grid operators are scrambling to build out their systems as the world’s demand for electricity skyrockets, driven in large part by the AI data center boom. Meanwhile, electric cars are becoming hugely popular in places like China, where they are often cheaper than gas-fueled vehicles, and Norway, which has long-standing policies incentivizing car buyers to go electric.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers on spending. Investment in clean energy and the grid outpaced the amount spent on fossil fuel supply in 2025 — marking the second year in a row that has happened. And investment in fossil fuel supply dropped last year for the first time since 2020, with BNEF reporting a $9 billion decline from 2024.

Now for the less-great news. Investment in the energy transition is growing overall, but more slowly than it used to —and right when the world needs it to accelerate.

Last year, it rose by only 8% — less than the 12% jump in 2024 and much less than the 22% one in 2023. Plus, while investment in sectors like clean industry and energy storage increased, the amount for renewable energy specifically declined by nearly 10%, something BNEF attributes to uncertainty caused by new power market rules in China. Even so, the Asian country is by far the largest market for energy transition investment, followed by the European Union and then the U.S.

Despite those slips, growth is growth — and the global shift to cleaner energy isn’t stopping just because of recent headwinds in the U.S. and beyond.

‍

This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday.

“🚨Single. Largest. Deregulatory. Action. EVER. Incoming: TOMORROW!”

That quote comes from an X post made by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday. Sure enough, the next day, Zeldin officially unveiled the subject of this WrestleMania-esque hype: The Trump administration has revoked the scientific basis for the federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions in America.

For 16 years, a scientific determination known as the ​“endangerment finding” has served as the backbone of U.S. policies to reduce emissions, allowing the EPA to put limits on planet-warming and health-harming pollution from vehicles, power plants, and other industrial sources of greenhouse gases.

There’s no doubt this will go to the courts. In fact, the finding itself has its roots in the legal system. Back in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — but only if the agency found that the gases were a threat to public health and welfare. In 2009, the EPA furnished overwhelming evidence in support of that point.

As The New York Times reports, a court battle seems to be precisely what the Trump administration wants. That would allow its lawyers to try to convince the conservative-majority Supreme Court to overturn the 2007 decision, thus dealing a more lasting blow to climate policy, as opposed to revoking the endangerment finding, which a Democratic administration would swiftly reverse.

There’s a reason the administration is relying on a legal strategy rather than contesting the science, Inside Climate News points out: The Trump EPA’s attempts to argue with the climate science have been ​“laughed out of the room,” Meredith Hankins, legal director for NRDC’s federal climate program, told the publication. (This has not stopped top Trump officials like Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from insisting on Fox News, in between breathless praise of ​“beautiful, clean coal,” that CO2 is merely plant food.)

Environmental advocates unanimously blasted the decision, highlighting how it would not only harm efforts to fight climate change, but threaten public health and affordability, too.

“Most people have never heard of this safeguard — the ​‘endangerment’ finding — but repealing it sends a clear message: this government doesn’t care,” David Widawsky, U.S. director of research group World Resources Institute, said in a statement. ​“The bottom line is that repealing these protections will make everyday life more expensive, more risky and more uncertain for Americans.”

A quick analysis from the research firm Rhodium Group attempted to quantify the exact impact the decision will have on U.S. climate efforts. It found that national emissions will still fall even if the finding is permanently repealed, thanks to the rapid growth of cheap clean energy, but that decarbonization will be more sluggish.

Put simply, repealing the endangerment finding will slow climate progress at the exact moment the world needs it to speed up.

More big energy stories

Coal gets another wave of federal support

The federal government unleashed another raft of pro-coal moves this week, aimed at keeping aging power plants running past their prime.

First, on Tuesday, the EPA granted coal-plant owners an extension on cleaning up toxic coal ash. The EPA had previously required owners to start cleaning up inactive coal ash storage sites — which can leech dangerous pollutants into groundwater — by mid-2029, but now they’ll have until early 2032.

The same day, the Tennessee Valley Authority — the federally owned utility whose board is now packed with Trump appointees — announced plans to keep two of its four coal-fired power plants running instead of retiring them in 2035.

And to wrap up the week, Trump ordered the Defense Department to buy more coal-fired power and announced that the Department of Energy would award $175 million to upgrade several aging coal plants. (The details on how this will work are … fuzzy.)

Puerto Rico’s grid crisis reaches a Super Bowl–size audience

If you watched Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance on Sunday, you saw a swirling celebration of Puerto Rican culture — and a statement about the island’s fragile power grid.

After a few minutes graced by Lady Gaga, a real wedding, and people dressed as sugarcane, things quite literally turned dark. As Bad Bunny sang his 2022 song​“El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), he and some dancers climbed electric poles as the lights flickered and sparks flew.

It was a high-profile reminder that Puerto Rico’s power grid has been in shambles since 2017’s Hurricanes Irma and Maria, Canary Media’s Maria Gallucci reports. Even without major weather events, Puerto Rican utility customers face an average of 27 hours of power grid interruptions each year — and recent Trump administration cuts aren’t helping. Distributed solar and battery systems have shown promise in keeping the lights on and power costs low, but with federal assistance stripped back, most residents are still unable to tap in.

Clean energy news to know this week

Spinning up success: Offshore wind performed as well as gas power plants and better than coal in January, shoring up the Northeast’s power grid through a brutal cold spell. (Canary Media)

The offshore wind fight continues: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the Trump administration plans to appeal five rulings that allowed offshore wind farm construction to continue. (Bloomberg)

Natural gas disconnect: Experts say the Trump administration’s push to expand natural gas exports doesn’t mesh with its promise to curb skyrocketing power prices back in the U.S. (Canary Media)

Coal’s mounting cost: The net cost of keeping a Michigan coal plant open has reached $135 million since President Trump ordered the facility to stay online in May 2025. (MLive)

Powerful pivot: At least 10 North American EV battery plants are being revamped to instead produce grid batteries for energy storage systems. (Financial Times)

Renewables under attack: A bill making its way through Ohio’s legislature would essentially ban wind and solar development in the state — one of several similar attempts around the U.S. (Canary Media)

Heat-pump troubleshooting: Icy crusts kept some heat pumps from performing their best during recent bouts of extreme cold, but experts recommend owners take a few easy steps ahead of storms to keep their systems running. (Canary Media)

Data center crackdown: The White House has reportedly drafted a pact with tech giants that would have them make public commitments to ensure that their data centers don’t raise household power prices, stress water supplies, or hurt grid reliability. (Politico)

‍

Heat pumps outsold fossil gas–fired furnaces in the U.S. yet again last year.

That’s the fourth year in a row — a testament to Americans’ sustained appetite for the zero-emissions appliances crucial to weaning buildings off planet-warming fossil fuels.

In 2025, 12% more air-source heat pump units shipped in the U.S. than gas furnaces, the next most-popular heating appliance, per data released today from the industry trade group Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that more households are installing the über-efficient appliance instead of furnaces; one home may need multiple heat pump units to replace a single furnace.

And not all the data was good news for the climate. Shipments of gas-powered units ticked upward last year to 3.2 million, while heat pump sales fell to 3.6 million.

But these are year-to-year fluctuations, and the broader trend is still toward heat pumps, experts told Canary Media.

Given the health, comfort, efficiency, and climate benefits of the tech, a complete transition to heat pumps feels inevitable, said Ryan Shea, manager in the carbon-free buildings team at nonprofit RMI. ​“I think the only question is … how fast the transition happens, not if.”

Electric heat pumps are two-way air conditioners that offer both space cooling and heating. They’re a critical tool to eradicating carbon pollution from buildings, which account for more than one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Because the tech is two to four times as efficient as fossil-fueled systems, heat pumps also save most households money on their energy bills — a winning attribute as more Americans grapple with a cost-of-living crisis.

So why the dip in heat pump shipments last year?

A combination of factors, from tariffs to higher interest rates to a sluggish construction market, was likely to blame, according to experts.

A changeover in refrigerants also played a role. For years, heat pumps and air conditioners utilized the hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant R-410A, which has a strong global-warming potential. But as of Jan. 1, 2025, federal law has required newly manufactured systems to use a less polluting class of refrigerants, called A2Ls.

At least some distributors stocked up on the equipment in 2024, so they’d be ready if customers asked for their broken heat pumps or ACs to be replaced with the same models, said Kevin Carbonnier, senior manager of market intelligence at the nonprofit Building Decarbonization Coalition. That led to a backlog of extra inventory in 2025.

But the refrigerant and market factors ​“are temporary headwinds,” said Wael Kanj, research manager at electrification advocacy nonprofit Rewiring America. ​“I don’t think they change the fundamentals. Heat pumps are still the most efficient and comfortable way to heat and cool the home.”

Standing in the way of a total heat-pump takeover has long been their price tag. In 2024, Rewiring America estimated that for a medium-size home, a central heat-pump system costs a median of $25,000. A comparable gas furnace plus central AC system can cost roughly half that.

Even for the same building, contractors may provide hugely varying estimates. Last year, heat-pump research firm Laminar Collective found that for one 2,000-square-foot abode in the Boston area, installers’ quotes for a whole-home heat-pump system could differ by more than $10,000.

The Trump administration has worked against making the tech more affordable. Last year, it terminated home-energy tax credits that reduced the cost of an air-source heat pump by up to $2,000, and of a ground-source, or geothermal, heat pump by an uncapped dollar amount up to 30% of the cost.

Some federal funding to boost heat pumps continues to flow, however, including a $200 million grant to Denver-area local governments. Several states — including California, Georgia, New York, and Indiana — have also been able to tap into an $8.8 billion grant program created under the Biden administration to launch home energy rebate programs that help low- and median-income households afford heat pumps.

Even without the tax credits, thousands of incentive programs that lower the upfront costs of electrification still exist at state, local, and utility levels, Kanj said. Rewiring America and the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center offer online tools so that households can find available credits.

State and local governments are also pursuing creative ways to help heat pumps take off. New England and California have launched multipronged initiatives to raise public awareness and get heating, ventilation, and air conditioning contractors on board. Massachusetts has implemented a lower winter electricity rate for heat pump owners. New York City, which has an all-electric standard for new buildings, launched a $38.4 million program earlier this month to deploy window heat pumps in affordable housing. And California legislators are considering a bill that would cut red tape for homeowners looking to install these electric appliances.

Investors are backing innovation in this space. The Vancouver-based startup Jetson, for example, just raised $50 million to scale its direct-to-consumer approach, which it says cuts installation costs in half.

And although U.S. heat-pump sales didn’t break any annual records in 2025, the tech did quietly achieve a major milestone: In September, more heat pumps shipped than central ACs for the first time.

“It’s really exciting to see the market moving in that direction,” Shea said.

The Building Decarbonization Coalition’s Carbonnier hopes that in the next year or two, ​“we’ll see it fully cross over” — the way heat pumps overtook gas furnaces four years ago.

‍