Companies and countries have made enormous climate commitments. Meeting them requires technologies that in many cases don’t yet exist at scale. As someone who tracks emerging tech, I spend significant time understanding the decarbonization landscape.

Here’s my assessment of where various technologies actually stand.

The Readiness Framework

I think about decarbonization technologies in three categories:

Deployment-ready: Proven technology, competitive economics in at least some applications, ready for wide deployment. The barrier is capital and execution, not technology.

Development-stage: Technology works but isn’t yet economically competitive or scalable. Needs continued R&D, cost reduction through learning curves, or policy support.

Speculative: Promising concepts without demonstrated viability at meaningful scale. High uncertainty about whether they’ll ever work.

Let me apply this to major decarbonization technology areas.

Electricity Generation

Solar PV: Deployment-ready. The cheapest form of new electricity generation in most of the world. Still improving on cost and efficiency. The challenges are integration (intermittency, grid upgrades) rather than the technology itself.

Wind: Deployment-ready. Onshore wind is mature and economically competitive. Offshore wind is more expensive but proven and scaling. Similar integration challenges as solar.

Battery storage: Deployment-ready for short duration. Lithium-ion batteries for 4-hour storage are economic in many applications. Costs continue falling. Longer-duration storage remains development-stage.

Nuclear fission: Deployment-ready, but… The technology works. Existing plants run reliably. But new construction is consistently late and over budget. SMRs might change this but haven’t proven it yet.

Enhanced geothermal: Development-stage. Fervo and others are demonstrating that techniques from oil and gas can unlock geothermal resources in more locations. Promising but not yet at scale.

Nuclear fusion: Speculative. Despite private sector momentum, no one has demonstrated net energy gain in a way that scales to commercial power production.

Transportation

Electric vehicles: Deployment-ready for passenger vehicles. EVs are cost-competitive on total cost of ownership in many markets. Battery improvements continue. Charging infrastructure is catching up.

Electric trucks (short-haul): Deployment-ready. For delivery and regional trucking, electric trucks work economically today.

Electric trucks (long-haul): Development-stage. Battery weight and charging time limit long-haul applications. Improving but not yet practical for cross-country trucking.

Hydrogen for heavy transport: Development-stage. Hydrogen fuel cells for trucks, ships, and aircraft are technically viable but expensive. Green hydrogen production at scale doesn’t exist yet.

Sustainable aviation fuel: Development-stage. SAF works (it’s chemically similar to jet fuel), but production is tiny and costs are multiples of conventional fuel.

Shipping decarbonization: Development-stage. Various approaches (ammonia, methanol, hydrogen, batteries for short routes) are being piloted. No clear winner yet for long-distance shipping.

Industry

Green steel (hydrogen-based): Development-stage. HYBRIT and others have demonstrated hydrogen-based steelmaking. Not yet cost-competitive with blast furnaces but improving.

Cement decarbonization: Development-stage to speculative. The most promising approaches (alternative chemistries, carbon capture, electrification) are early. This is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize.

Chemical industry electrification: Development-stage. High-temperature industrial heat from electricity rather than fossil fuels is possible but requires infrastructure that doesn’t exist.

Carbon Removal

Afforestation/reforestation: Deployment-ready but limited. Trees absorb carbon. But land constraints, permanence questions, and competition with other land uses limit scalability.

Direct air capture: Development-stage to speculative. Climeworks and others have operating plants. But current costs ($400-1000/ton) are far above what’s needed for meaningful scale. Whether costs can drop to $100/ton remains uncertain.

Enhanced weathering: Speculative. Spreading minerals that absorb CO2 through weathering. Scientifically plausible but unproven at scale.

Ocean-based removal: Speculative. Various approaches (ocean alkalinity enhancement, seaweed cultivation) are being researched. Very early stage.

The Pattern

Looking across this landscape, some patterns emerge:

Electricity is furthest along. The path to decarbonized electricity is clearer than for other sectors. The technologies exist; the challenge is deployment speed.

Transportation is next. Passenger vehicles are essentially solved. Other transport modes are harder but have visible pathways.

Industry is hardest. Heavy industry decarbonization faces genuine technological challenges, not just deployment challenges.

Carbon removal is mostly speculative. Organizations relying on future carbon removal to offset ongoing emissions are making risky bets.

What This Means

For innovation managers and investors:

Deployment-ready technologies represent investment and business opportunities now. Solar, wind, batteries, EVs - these are mature enough for mainstream adoption and deployment plays.

Development-stage technologies are where R&D, pilots, and patient capital can make a difference. These need work but have viable paths forward.

Speculative technologies should be treated as such. They might be important eventually, but shouldn’t be relied upon for near-term decarbonization plans.

For corporate climate strategy:

Don’t bet on speculative technology. A net-zero plan that depends on direct air capture at $50/ton in 2040 is a hope, not a plan.

Prioritize deployment. For most companies, the biggest opportunities are deploying proven technology faster - electrifying vehicle fleets, switching to renewable power, improving energy efficiency.

Watch the development-stage technologies. These may become deployment-ready in your planning horizon. Track progress so you can act when the economics shift.

The climate technology landscape is more mature than it was a decade ago, but significant gaps remain. Honest assessment of technology readiness should inform both investment decisions and climate commitments. Over-promising and under-delivering helps no one.