With the COP26 summit starting next week, the UN's climate team said the latest plans confirmed "worrying trends" of countries delaying sorely needed emissions cuts
With the COP26 summit starting next week, the UN's climate team said the latest plans confirmed "worrying trends" of countries delaying sorely needed emissions cuts

The amount of venture capital money spent on climate technology this year exceeds $32 billion, quadrupling the amount spent since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016, according to a report.

Significant global investment in transportation, energy, and circular economy solutions have spurred the growth of climate tech over the last five years. There have been 416 climate tech startups, including three $1 billion unicorns and six potential unicorns since 2016.

Europe is the fastest-growing region, with London leading the way by raising $3.3 billion in venture capital investments since 2016. The only place with a larger concentration of climate tech startups is the Bay Area, California, according to CNBC.

The report defines climate tech as “a company addressing one or more of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals . . . applying technologies to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emission or addressing the impacts of climate change.”

COP26 President Alok Sharma told delegates on Tuesday that the summit was a chance for nations to make good on their finance pledges

COP26 President Alok Sharma told delegates on Tuesday that the summit was a chance for nations to make good on their finance pledges Photo: AFP / MIGUEL MEDINA

On Monday, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said at the Middle East Green Initiative Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that “it is my belief that the next 1,000 unicorns — companies that have a market valuation over a billion dollars — won’t be a search engine, won’t be a media company, they’ll be businesses developing green hydrogen, green agriculture, green steel, and green cement . . . ”

Ahead of the COP26 climate summit, the UN predicts that the current climate plans of countries around the world will only be a tiny percentage of what is needed to limit global heating to 1.5C. Instead, they predict the world is set for a 2.7C rise.

That makes the contributions of climate tech companies all the more important for the future, Fink said: "The process of creating fuel, food, and construction materials, with all the needs that we have as humanity, it all has to be reinvented."