Hey there,
The Trump admin just killed a foundational part of US climate policy. A scientific finding may not be as sexy billion-dollar grants and loans, but the “endangerment finding” has been doing a lot of heaving lifting.
I try not to write about US policy all the time, but today we’ll unpack what this change means for US emissions - and for Canadian startups selling into the US market.
Elsewhere in climate tech:
PowerBank wants to power space-based data centres
ecobee plugs its smart thermostats into the grid
The EU launches the first carbon removal standards
🗓 I’ll be at Carbon Removal Day in Ottawa in a few weeks. The carbon removal space has grown rapidly over the past few years, and I’m looking forward to catching up with folks to talk about what comes next. If you're in town, drop me a line - always happy to connect over coffee.
Will you be at Carbon Removal Day?
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POLICY
Trump’s EPA kills keystone climate finding
Credit: Khunkorn Laowisit
What happened: The US EPA overturned the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the legal foundation for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
The details: The EPA now claims that greenhouse gas emissions aren’t a direct risk to human health, and therefore lacks the authority to regulate carbon emissions without explicit direction from Congress.
The change only immediately impacts tailpipe emissions from vehicles, but the logic extends to power plants, industrial emissions - potentially everything the Clean Air Act once covered.
The change is already being challenged in courts, and even Tesla asked the EPA not to act, citing the regulatory stability as critical to long-term investment.
Why it matters: It’s a regulatory rug pull for all kinds of climate solutions, and changes how startups sell into the market:
Compliance-driven demand just became voluntary, shrinking the market and adding uncertainty
Investors will reprice policy-dependent revenue assumptions
A patchwork of state-by-state rules will fill the gap, fragmenting the market
The bottom line: The US market just got a lot riskier and more fragmented. The companies that come out ahead are the ones beating incumbents on price and performance - not relying on policy tailwinds and subsidies.
CLIMATE CAPITAL
🌱 Farm Credit Canada secured commitments from investors to mobilize $5 billion into Canada’s food industry by 2030 across technology, business, farm land and more.
Notably, Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald has been pitching investors directly
💰 CWV Sustainable Royalties plans to raise $100 million via private placement and a $50 million investment from Fairfax Financial Holdings for its clean tech royalties fund.
☀ Clean energy developer PowerBank invested $500K in Orbit AI, which is developing space-based data centres using solar power and passive cooling.
IN THE FIELD
📊 Mangrove Systems launched Mangrove MCP, an open standard to allow AI tools to query carbon removal and low-carbon fuel project data, replacing manual data exports with natural language searches.
Mangrove also recently announced it will deploy its digital MRV platform at Super6 Carbon’s biogenic carbon removal projects in the US Midwest.
🔋 Eguana Technologies partnered with Shadow Power to deploy distributed energy storage fleets across the US and Canada using Shadow’s homeowner financing solutions
⚡ ecobee is getting into the grid game - it’s Grid Resiliency Service delivered 108 MW of capacity across North America last summer, and could unlock 2.8 GW by aggregating temperature adjustments during peak demand.
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NEWS
📡 Signals & Currents
Setting the bar for carbon removal: The EU adopted the first-ever standards for carbon removal projects. The new voluntary standards apply to Direct Air Capture with Carbon Storage (DACCS), Biogenic Emissions Capture with Carbon Storage (BECCS), and Biochar projects.
→ Why it matters: While voluntary, the standards create clear standards for projects, de-risking the sector for buyers and investors.
Half-measures: Canada will only deliver half of its 2030 emissions targets under current and announced policies. Fixing industrial carbon pricing is critical to getting back on track, but under-appreciated levers like electricity, ag and land use, and adopting “safe bet” solutions could help move the needle.
New nukes: Ontario Power Generation announced plans to build a new large nuclear reactor in Port Hope, Ontario with the potential for 10 GW of power. It would be the first new large reactor in Canada since the early 90s.
Defence adaptation: Canada’s defence infrastructure and contaminated sites are exposed to a high level of climate risk, including extreme weather, permafrost thaw and sea-level rise.
Quick Hits
Carbon Plan is setting wildfire risk data free
Offshore wind showed up big during the East Coast’s brutal cold
Chiquita mapped the banana genome to develop disease- and climate-resilient varieties
Twilio founder pivots from software to fusion with $450M raise
Why Koko’s clean cookstove network collapsed in Nigeria
Colorado mulls clean energy, water rules for new data centres
SOLV Energy’s $6B IPO to build solar and batteries
COMMUNITY
🗓 Carbon Removal Day: Join the carbon removal sector to determine what it takes to put Canada on a path to catalyzing a billion tonnes of carbon removal by 2050. March 5th, Ottawa.
🚀 Adaptech Accelerator: MaRS’s Adaptech Accelerator is designed to help ventures speed up the development of climate change adaptation and resilience solutions. Apply by Feb 23rd.
💻 Opalia hiring Cell Culture Lab Technicians to build the future of dairy.
➡ More: Job Board | Funding Opportunities | Events
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