Shift Key with Robinson Meyer1 Okt 2025

Heatmap’s Reporters Talk About Electricity, Inflation, and the New Era in Climate Politics

It’s been a busy few weeks for climate and energy. New York Climate Week brought hundreds of events — and thousands of people — to the city to discuss decarbonization and energy policy. The New Jersey governor’s race has raised the salience of electricity rates. And suddenly everyone is talking about energy affordability.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob is joined by his colleagues at Heatmap to discuss some of the biggest topics in energy and climate. What did they take away from New York Climate Week? What do the new politics of affordability mean for climate policy? And what are the benefits — and hazards — of arguing for climate policy by talking about how clean energy is cheap energy?

This Heatmap reporter roundtable features Heatmap’s deputy editor Jillian Goodman and its staff writers, Emily Pontecorvo and Matthew Zeitlin. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University. Jesse is off this week.

Mentioned:

Everything that happened at Heatmap’s Climate Week event

Matthew on the peril for Democrats of running on electricity prices

Emily on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Arjun Krishnaswami in Utility Dive

Jillian’s downshift; Emily’s downshift; Matthew’s quasi-upshift; Rob’s downshift.

This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Hydrostor is building the future of energy with Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage. Delivering clean, reliable power with 500-megawatt facilities sited on 100 acres, Hydrostor’s energy storage projects are transforming the grid and creating thousands of American jobs. Learn more at hydrostor.ca.

Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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