Theory of Change
Global emissions hit all-time highs in 2025. The global economy is not developing, commercializing, and deploying the next generation of energy and industrial technologies fast enough to lower global emissions.
Market competition is the engine of innovation.
The solution is technological innovation driven by competitive market forces—developing, commercializing, and deploying energy and industrial technologies that are better, cheaper, and cleaner than the incumbents, across every sector.
Competition depends on a well-functioning market.
Innovation at that scale requires a market with predictable incentives, adequate and reliable infrastructure, secure supply chains, and a level playing field.
Today, the market is not delivering.
The incentive structure to drive energy innovation is broken. In many parts of the world, we can’t build energy infrastructure fast enough to meet rising demand. Critical mineral supply chains are fragile due to anti-competitive monopolistic practices. And carbon-intensive producers face no accountability for their emissions, rewarding free riding at the expense of cleaner competitors.
This is where policy comes in.
Policy can target incentives to drive innovation, remove the barriers to building and maintaining necessary infrastructure, counter the anti-competitive practices that distort supply chains, and level the playing field to ensure fair competition.
The U.S. is essential.
U.S. policy is essential to global decarbonization because the U.S. market is essential to global decarbonization. The United States is the world’s most powerful, wealthy, and innovative economy. It has the deepest capital markets, capable of financing innovation and deployment at scale; a large and wealthy consumer base that shapes incentives across the global market; an unrivaled record of transformative innovation and market disruption; and the manufacturing and labor base to build and export those solutions worldwide.
Leading with American priorities.
To bring the full power of the U.S. economy to global decarbonization, we must change the political calculus by aligning climate solutions with enduring American priorities: competitiveness, security, and economic opportunity.
A virtuous cycle.
Done well, this creates a virtuous cycle. Policies that drive innovation, low-carbon manufacturing, and clean energy deployment deliver tangible benefits to Americans—building an ever-larger, bipartisan constituency for the next round of climate action.
The Council’s work.
The Council’s mission is to advance solutions that promote U.S. competitiveness, security, and economic opportunity as the central strategy for lowering global emissions. Our lever for change is U.S. policy, focused on four priorities:
- Leveling the playing field
- Restoring robust supply chains
- Removing barriers to investment
- Setting predictable market incentives
Through trusted research and analysis, we develop and evaluate policy approaches that serve American interests while lowering global emissions. Through partnerships with leaders across industry, government, and the broader policy community, we build the coalitions that turn those approaches into durable policy. And each success widens the constituency for the next.