Clean Energy Has to Outcompete Fossil Fuels (Not Cancel Them)

Aliya Haq has been involved in the environmental movement since she was eight years old, protesting an incinerator in her rural hometown. Over 25 years she’s led policy at Greenpeace, Breakthrough Energy, and now the Clean Economy Project. In this conversation, she tells Steph Speirs why the old playbook of “stop bad things” no longer meets the moment, and what it takes to actually build a clean economy fast enough to matter. Aliya and Steph dig into the practical questions facing every climate tech founder and investor right now: Why does clean energy need policy to exist? How do permitting reform, transmission, and interconnection actually get unstuck? And how do companies navigate a moment where wealthy funders are backing away from climate, and federal policy feels like quicksand? It’s a candid and clearsighted conversation about what it means to shift from activist to builder–and why the economics of clean energy are already winning, if we let them.