Last week was London Climate Action Week, and the irony wasn’t lost on most attendees, who were attending events in the midst of the UK’s second heatwave of 2026. With trains cancelled or delayed, and air conditioning at venues struggling under the weight of 35+ degree temperatures, the event took on a new sense of urgency. Climate change isn’t just something coming down the line – it’s here, now.
I was able to observe from afar and was intrigued by the variation in tone across LinkedIn as people attended events and processed the outputs. Using AI analysis, I was able to take a scrape of the variety of LinkedIn posts and carry out analysis of key themes and tone, focusing on energy related topics. And what I discovered was incredibly interesting and showcases how businesses across the sector need to shape their narratives going forward – to engage investors, stakeholders and customers alike.
The language has changed – and that matters
Posts from inside the event showcased in real time the change in narrative – how** **vocabulary has shifted from Net Zero, Sustainability and Decarbonisation to Energy Security, Resilience, Competitiveness and Growth. And this echoes what I’ve already spoken about the changing focus in conference programmes over the last 6 months. This isn’t a move away from recognising the importance of the energy transition but rather a strategic change – again, from debate to doing. All brought into sharper focus by current geopolitical volatility.
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the UN opened the week with a reference to Dickens, and a ‘Tale of Two Crises’ – highlighting how climate breakdown and energy insecurity are not parallel problems with no linkage, but rather the same problem driven by fossil fuel dependence.
What does that mean for businesses across the sector? It’s a shift in language that is important to recognise. A continued focus on ‘net zero’ is no longer relevant – we’re all moving towards it, and the focus needs to be on the elements that solve the problem – not highlighting the problem itself.
Taking a deep dive into the numbers, energy security was the phrase that got by far the most engagement on LinkedIn, ahead of Grid, Fossil Fuel and Renewable Energy.
And the focus was clearly set on delivery – from posts questioning whether the sector is actually set up to deliver on what needs to happen, rather than just talk about it.
The spectre of COP31 in Turkey looms large and is generating concern – posts talking about the upcoming UN climate conference got significant engagement – perhaps signalling that the gap between Bonn negotiations and real-world implementation is front of mind.
What is also interesting is that ‘energy diplomacy’ and ‘energy politics’ are becoming distinct diplomatic challenges in their own right. Post-Ukraine energy architecture, EU-UK interconnection, and hydrogen trade corridors are generating discussion.
Moving on to one of the most dominant phrases in the energy lexicon - Energy Transition is used the most often but generates one of the lower engagement scores when used – the phrase is now just ambient noise amongst the complexity of how the problem is solved.
Content that really cuts through is surprisingly specific – it’s all about the data. Ørsted’s disclosure that it reduced emissions from energy production by 98% in 2025 and is now targeting scope 3; the McKinsey post on scaling renewables while managing environmental stewardship trade-offs – this is the content that gets the most traction with readers.
Interestingly, specific technology types did not appear very often when talking about solutions - but got by far the highest engagement. This in itself showcases how the debate is shifting – readers want technology specificity and real examples of solving the problem over generic transition narrative.
Unsurprisingly, and as we’ve spoken about before, AI dominated content from LCAW with both its frequency of mention, and the overall engagement. This leads us on to the new kid on the energy block – data centres – which were raising significant concern as an energy demand driver. AI formed a cluster with Carbon removal, AI infrastructure, and green chemicals, all named as industries where energy is currently the blocker to scale.
The implication for energy sector positioning is clear - AI is no longer just a tool for grid optimisation or demand forecasting. It is a new category of industrial energy customer, with procurement, grid management, and regulatory consequences. And critically, it presents another problem to be solved.
Grid and Flexibility content averages was also driving conversation – a recognition that how we deliver more with the assets we already have is something that is keeping a lot of people awake at night.
The focus appears to be home energy as grid infrastructure, not as passive consumption and EVs, heat pumps, and smart meters are now being discussed as grid participants. This is the demand-side flexibility argument moving from niche to mainstream LCAW conversation.
What it tells us about where the sector is heading
There are three clear directional signals from this analysis that not only tell us where the industry focus is moving to, but also how organisations should reframe their content to get the most cut-through.
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The energy sector is rephrasing its purpose. Phrases such as security, resilience, and competitiveness do not move us away from a focus on the energy transition; they are instead the language that unlocks capital and drives the right legislative moves in a volatile political landscape.
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Delivery is the new ambition with a focus on the language of accountability and implementation across the data set – all clearly indicating that the wider sector has moved beyond wanting to hear about targets but rather wanting to understand how we solve the problem.
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We’ve shifted significantly from talking about how we generate clean energy, to demand side is becoming the story. AI, industrial energy use, and home flexibility are all coming together to ask - who manages the load, and how? The answer is where the biggest opportunity lies – and there will be clear winners and losers in this space.
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