CERAWeek 2026: How the Energy Industry Balances Growth, Climate Risks, and the Urgency to Adapt
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CERAWeek is one of the world’s largest professional events, entirely dedicated to energy in all its forms: oil (of course, this is Texas), gas, nuclear (a lot), renewables (less so), power grid, storage, services, and more. Callendar was there as part of the French delegation led by Bpifrance.
After an intensive week, dozens of conferences and direct discussions with over fifty corporate leaders (including Saudi Aramco, Petrobras, Orano USA, ExxonMobil, ENGIE Resources, EnfraGen, Gunvor, and many others) here’s what we took away from CERAWeek 2026.
Between exuberant growth, climate realism, and forced adaptation, the debates revealed an industry keenly aware of its vulnerability but still grappling with its strategy in the face of rising climate risks.
An Industry Expanding More Than Transitioning
Let’s be clear: despite the war in Iran and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, despite fears of an AI bubble, and despite political uncertainties, the mood in Houston last week was far from gloomy.
Overall, Western energy industry leaders are expecting prosperous years ahead. The explosive growth of artificial intelligence and the rapid construction of data centers are driving an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, sparking a rush for new production capacity. And with Russian and Middle Eastern hydrocarbons unavailable and China sidelined from materials and equipment contracts, international competitors appear to be out of the game for the foreseeable future.
At their annual gathering, energy industry leaders were triumphant. Even historically unpopular sectors like mining and nuclear power are suddenly seeing an influx of capital and political support.
Climate at CERAWeek: Between Seriousness, Concern, and Contradiction
This doesn’t mean climate change has disappeared from the conversation. In fact, the sheer demand for energy, especially electricity, has put decarbonized production in the spotlight. Nuclear power, in particular, along with energy efficiency solutions and renewables, are seeing a lot of traction. On the latter point, the U.S. federal government’s staunch opposition to wind power is frustrating a lot of actors, but solar is managed at the state level and continues to grow.
Meanwhile, CERAWeek’s program gave significant attention to controversial climate change mitigation techniques: carbon capture and storage, direct air capture and geoengineering.
Climate change is taken seriously at CERAWeek. In panel discussions, the rare climate-skeptic or complacent voices were quickly challenged by other participants or moderators.
The prominence of these techniques reveals a dissonance often seen in discussions. There was a clear consensus: the Paris Agreement targets will not be met. Should they be abandoned altogether? The majority say no. Climate change is taken seriously, and everyone here remembers how difficult it was to negotiate the agreement in the first place.
To reconcile these positions, the idea of an “overshoot” is increasingly discussed: a temporary exceedance of the +2°C threshold, combined with a reliance on breakthrough technologies to bring warming back down to a more acceptable level.
Climate Risks: “the Jaws Soundtrack”
In the meantime, industry players are aware that they will need to adapt, and quickly. The discussion is no longer about anticipating climate risks in ten or twenty years. It is about the 2021 Texas Freeze, the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires... and what is likely to happen this year. With an El Niño episode developing, many expect an exceptionally warm period, potentially exceeding the temperature records of the past three years.
As Terence Thompson (Chief Scientist, Climate Center of Excellence at S&P Global) put it: “If you look at recent weather as a movie, the soundtrack is the theme from Jaws.”
The impacts of climate change are already here. In a very literal sense, you just have to open the window: late March, temperatures across the United States were 5 to 10 degrees above seasonal averages. Here again, federal policy under Donald Trump is often seen as a constraint. Concerns are frequently raised about the weakening of public meteorological and climate institutions.
As climate change accelerates and public data becomes less accessible and less reliable, companies are preparing to turn to private actors to anticipate extreme events and chronic climate risks.
Anticipation and Diagnostic Tools: Solutions and Needs Expressed at CERAWeek
Even companies that consider themselves sheltered will not be able to ignore the issue for long. As climate projections become increasingly accessible, they face a growing risk that investors, insurers, or clients will conduct their own assessments and identify indirect exposure. In other words, the development of climate services is effectively transforming physical risks into financial risks.
"Climate projections are becoming more accessible, this will accelerate the pricing of climate risks in all sectors from insurance to M&A." (Peter Tufano, Harvard Business School)
Some players have already positioned themselves accordingly. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft were all present and each introduced meteorological tools with applications tailored to the energy sector. Google, for instance, showcased WeatherNext, an AI driven weather forecast system developed by DeepMind, combined with power system impact assessments and automated action plans generation for operators.
In climatology, however, initiatives remain more limited. Most solutions rely on repackaging public datasets with an added layer of AI for processing. It is not clear that this approach addresses the needs expressed during CERAWeek. The primary pain point raised by industry stakeholders is not access to data, but the ability to derisk projects for external stakeholders.
This first requires methods and tools that can be considered authoritative. Several companies have conducted benchmarks of available solutions and found "results all over the place". As a result, there is a clear demand for tools that are "transparent and auditable" (Veery Maxwell, partner at the VC fund Galvanize).
Then, what is required are operational results that are sufficiently precise to quantify the impact of a decision in concrete terms, both the cost of action and the cost of inaction. These results must also support the technical design of adaptation measures, enabling them to be calibrated to the right level of risk without leading to overinvestment or underprotection. This is likely where efforts should now be concentrated.
Callendar supports major industrial actors including Orano, RTE and TotalEnergies in integrating climate projections into project design and decision making.
If you have questions or would like to discuss, do not hesitate to get in touch.