The pace of climate change shows no signs of slowing. For Colombia in particular, the effects are already a grave cause for concern. 

The coastal city of Cartagena de Indias is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. However, climate change researchers warn the city is extremely vulnerable to sea level rise and could be underwater by the end of the century. 

Aside from the hit to tourism and loss of history associated with the colonial city of Cartagena, its port is a hub for trade and commerce. If sea levels increase 76cm by 2100 as predicted, the port is at risk, in what would be a major blow for the economy and global trade. 

Although it may take until 2100 for Cartagena to be submerged, we don’t need to wait that long to see the impact of climate change.  

While hurricane season is a regular occurrence in the Caribbean, these are becoming more ferocious. In 2020, the Colombian island of Providencia was hit by a category 4 hurricane that cleared the island, flattening homes, hospitals and schools. The country has spent around $141 million to rebuild the island, however local reports say these new structures were poorly made. As these extreme weather events become more frequent, governments will find that repairing infrastructure after each disaster is no longer a sustainable solution. 

This is a similar story across Latin America. The fifth major hurricane of the season in 2024 caused widespread landslides and flooding, leaving Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua reeling.

It’s not just coastal regions that are affected. Fluctuating weather patterns are driving food insecurity and affecting the production of important export crops such as coffee and cocoa that many communities rely on as a primary source of income. New technology ventures such as Wingsure, which was spun out from SRI International (formerly the Stanford Research Institute), are helping here by leveraging AI to provide tools and training for farming in addition to other areas, yet support is still needed.

Colombia is the world’s third-largest coffee producer, however climate change and successive cycles of La Niña and El Niño are causing either torrential rains or prolonged droughts that are detrimental to coffee production. Small-scale farmers in the Sierra Nevada mountains say warming temperatures and unpredictable rainfall cycles are putting their livelihoods at risk, but any major drop in production will also affect the overall GDP of the country. 

The economic and social impacts caused by climate change mean that time is a critical factor. This urgency is driving a wave of innovation in climate-tech and interest in low-carbon solutions internationally. With the impact this is having, here are four industries to watch. 

Solar solutions accelerate the clean energy transition 

The clean energy transition aims to reduce our global dependence on fossil fuels and replace them with renewable energy sources. 

Solar energy was a fairly modest contributor to overall electricity generation in the past, however it’s share has nearly doubled in the last three years, rising to 7% in 2024 and accounting for 81% of all new renewable energy capacity added worldwide. 

This progress has been bolstered by advancements which have helped to bring the associated costs of solar installation and make solar sites more efficient. Solar is also unique in its versatility. It’s one of the few types of green energy feasible for both industrial and personal energy generation. Huge commercial solar farms are helping to unlock energy in an efficient way to boost the reliability of energy grids. 

However, these take time to build and require significant upfront investment. In the meantime, residential and commercial rooftop panels are quick and easy to install. On an individual basis, these won’t generate huge amounts of energy, but the collective impact of these rooftop installations quickly add up. 

Planno is one company using geospatial AI and satellite imagery to identify, size, and pre-qualify commercial and industrial rooftop solar opportunities. It encapsulates vital rooftop information, including aggregated area, solar potential, average size, and solar adoption metrics to help developers find prime locations for solar installations to further support the clean energy transition. 

Publicly traded companies NextEra Energy (NEE) and First Solar (FSLR) are two other companies to watch, in addition to privately held Raya Power, which is looking to make solar energy accessible to everyone.  

Corporate sustainability aided with new ESG technology 

ESG - short for environmental, social and governance - is a reporting framework used to measure how the activities of an organization impact on the environment and society, in addition to the transparency of its governance. 

Initially, there was a surge of interest in ESG from companies and investors alike, built on the idea that companies with risky behaviors aren’t sustainable economically or environmentally. However, ESG reports used to demonstrate a company’s progress towards its ESG targets to partners and stakeholders began to come under fire. 

The complex and interconnected nature of global economies meant that even companies with the best intentions found it hard to measure the exact impact of business activities and efforts to decarbonize. 

However, new tech solutions are helping the ESG sector to overcome these initial teething problems, and it's causing a resurgence in interest. Credibl is a provider of sustainability and ESG solutions, leveraging advanced AI technologies to simplify complex sustainability challenges, like managing indirect emissions and delivering end-to-end traceability across products and supply chains. Its AI-powered platform enables businesses to produce accurate, audit-ready sustainability reports that comply with international standards, while providing insights to manage climate-related risks and drive sustainable growth.

In Mexico, Bono co-founders Nicolas Bodek and Harun Doğuş Çoruh have created a platform that analyzes, connects and finances industrial decarbonization. Serving corporations in Latin America such as insurance giant Sura, cement company Argos and energy firm Enel, Bono was part of the Center of Excellence in Technology-Based Entrepreneurship from university Tecnológico de Monterrey, and is a finalist for HSBC and EY’s New Economy Award for Leading Companies in Sustainable Innovation. 

We expect to see continued demand for ESG-related technology as more governments make sustainability reporting mandatory. As of January 2025, large corporations and financial institutions in Australia must submit climate reports that disclose information about all sustainability-related risks and opportunities, to provide investors, regulators, and communities greater transparency on how they are managing their climate risks and opportunities. Deloitte's SustainNext Climate Reporting™ is one venture to watch here.

Advancements in Agritech

Advancements in agritech are playing an important role to reduce climate impact by lowering agricultural greenhouse gas emissions through precision farming, methane capture, and climate-smart practices like no-till farming and crop rotation, in addition to other areas. 

New technology is also improving climate resilience by improving resource efficiency and providing data-driven insights for better planning and adaptation to changing conditions. At the same time, disparities in tech access and the need for supportive policies will play a critical role for widespread impact.

Verde Compacto, which creates solutions through technology to reinvent the way people produce and consume food, and Ocean Ecostructures, which fights against the loss of marine biodiversity with multi-technological solutions that regenerate and protect the ocean, are two privately-held companies to watch, in addition to publicly traded Trimble (TRMB).

Trimble recently announced a major expansion of its partner network to help the company continue to build momentum. The company's 12 month total shareholder return is around 30%, and the company recently introduced new automation tech for solar projects which has helped to sustain optimism.

New interest in low carbon potential of nuclear energy

Nuclear energy is a viable source of low-carbon power, but concerns around safety stemming from historical disasters have meant uptake has been slow. However, we’ve seen a renewed interest in recent years. 

The latest data shows 440 power nuclear power reactors now provide an estimated 9% of the world's electricity, and nuclear power is the world's second largest source of low-carbon power. 

Fusion power, a subset of nuclear energy, does not create any long-lived radioactive nuclear waste - one of the main concerns associated with nuclear energy. New developments in technology and manufacturing have helped to make fusion available on a much wider scale. Type One Energy applies proven advanced manufacturing methods, modern computational physics, and high-field superconducting magnets to develop an optimized stellarator fusion energy system, to bring sustainable, affordable fusion power to the world. 

Looking ahead, we expect to see continued growth in the nuclear energy industry as a result of the growing number of energy-hungry data centers. These data centers, key to the advancement of AI, come with their own set of ecological concerns, but onsite nuclear energy is expected to address the energy consumption needs without impacting national grid supplies. 

In this space, publicly traded companies Constellation Energy Corp. (CEG) and BWX Technologies Inc. (BWX) are two to watch.