In this episode of our podcast series Planet People Profit, Outlook Business’s Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs Editor, Sudipto Dey, sits down with Helen Clarkson, Chief Executive Officer at Climate Group, for a candid and thought-provoking conversation on the global climate crisis.
Clarkson underscores the urgent need to accelerate climate action—not just at scale but with speed—if we are to meaningfully combat global warming's impacts. She stresses the critical importance of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and making an immediate, conscious shift to renewable energy sources across sectors.
Clarkson underscores the urgent need to accelerate climate action—not just at scale but with speed—if we are to meaningfully combat global warming's impacts. She stresses the critical importance of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and making an immediate, conscious shift to renewable energy sources across sectors.
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00:00U.S. dropping out of diplomacy. It's been such an important force in the run-up to the Paris
00:04Agreement. It was actually China and U.S. working together that really got the Paris Agreement over
00:09the line and they sort of then dropped out. The energy transition has made so much progress. The
00:14price of VVs has come right down. The price of renewable electricity has come right down. Brexit
00:18dropped the U.K. out of EU, obviously, and sort of changes the dynamic there on the diplomacy side.
00:24But, you know, the U.K. has traditionally been good at that diplomacy role and has shown signs
00:28of wanting to work with Brazil and the UAE as they go into this COP. So hopefully that plays out
00:33positively. The governments are prioritizing short-term economic and political needs versus
00:39climate. Yeah, there's a lot of money that goes into climate misinformation. There's a narrative
00:44that climate costs more money.
00:58Welcome to another episode of Planet People Profit. I'm your host Sudipto Day and today we have the
01:06privilege to welcome a visionary guest, Helen Clarkson. Helen brings with her over 25 years
01:11of experience in advocating humanitarian and climate issues. She serves as the CEO of Climate Group,
01:17which works with governments and businesses across the globe, helping them achieve their net zero goals.
01:22In 2022, Helen was honoured with the Order of British Empire. In 2024, she earned a slot in
01:28the Independence Climate 100 list. Helen, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
01:34You know, as I'm going through your LinkedIn profile, I was curious to understand, you know,
01:41like from a chartered accountant, CA, to a climate activist, another CA, you know. So how did this
01:47switch happen? Well, actually, I went into chartered accountancy with a view to, I want a career in,
01:54I knew I wanted a mission-driven career. I wanted to go into non-profits and my degree was in
01:59philosophy and I thought, that's not such a useful skill. You know, I think philosophers are important
02:05in the world, but I thought, yeah, maybe you're good to have something practical to offer the world
02:08of non-profits and so on. So I actually trained as an accountant, but I left, I think, about six months
02:14after I qualified in order to move into mission-driven work. And I went to work for
02:21Médecins Sans Frontières, a big global humanitarian agency. I took six months traveling first, that was
02:28fun. And then I went. So I then worked for Médecins Sans Frontières. Initially, I did finance for them,
02:34but then I moved into a sort of project management role, which again, you know, uses skills like
02:38budgeting. So I've always found it really useful to have that skill set behind me. But no, I didn't ever
02:43want to be an accountant. I wanted to, I wanted to be, but it's useful now as CEO, because I'm not
02:50sure if my, you know, CFO finds it great that I can have a conversation with him. I'm like, but what
02:56about the balance sheet? And he's like, oh, she understands it. But it is a useful skill.
03:01But the fact that, you know, you had a stint in the corporate sector for some time, at least,
03:07you know, does that help you in the, you know, understanding the climate issues or the, you know,
03:13the taking of some of the, especially the finance issues related to climate?
03:17Yeah. I mean, less, I wouldn't claim to be a big finance expert. And that's definitely a bit where,
03:23you know, when people are talking that finance have to stop and think quite hard, you know,
03:26and, and there's people with real expertise in, you know, how do you structure finance deals and
03:30stuff. But I think I, you know, it's given me a grounding in, you know, why businesses might think
03:36like they do, and therefore how to get that business case to them. And I think it's, you know,
03:42I'm a very pragmatic person. And I've always had the view that, you know, well, for me, climate
03:48mission related issues are very sort of core to how I think, I get that business has a different
03:54set of drivers or way of thinking about the world. And it's useful to have had that background in,
04:00well, why do businesses think that shareholders are, you know, shareholder primacy, it's actually
04:06a myth. And it's been wildly over interpreted, I think, which is a whole nother conversation. But
04:12at least it's kind of given me a background more in, well, this is where businesses start from. And
04:16so if you can get into the business case, I think that's really helped as we sort of where we are on
04:20climate now, which is kind of endlessly making the business case. So it has come in handy.
04:25Yeah, it has come in handy, as I say, both for running my own organisation and being able to
04:28understand what I'm looking at on the page, and then engaging with businesses. Yes. But it's a long
04:34time in my past now. So occasionally, occasionally, I have to think, well, what would a double entry be?
04:40But it's very rare that I have to kind of really put my brain into that. Yeah, absolutely.
04:46I'm sure like, and as a CEO of our organisation, which is like, so widespread, you know, I'm pretty
04:52sure it's more than handy. But tell me one thing, like, you know, something which we just
04:58can't miss talking about is, you know, the Trump effect. Yes. You know, I'm pretty sure
05:04this is being asked and been talked about in the climate circles, you know, widely. Yeah,
05:10you know, you know, the Trump effect, how does it change the balance of green power? Or has it
05:15really changed the balance of green power? Unfortunately, I think it has. And it's,
05:20I think what's difficult at the moment is, well, I often forget, we're only sort of six weeks into this.
05:25It feels like six years, you know, it's just so much has happened. I think the problem is that last,
05:32you know, we knew we had a playbook last time, which worked quite well, you know, businesses carried
05:37on doing what they were doing, states and regions carried on doing what they were doing. We saw a lot
05:41of states in the US actually kind of being very ambitious and pushing forward. And so I think there
05:48was a slight feeling or we'll just kind of replay 2017 to 2021. It's working out already quite
05:54different. So let's start with the US domestic emissions, you know, US accounts for about 10%
05:58of global emissions. So already, if the US isn't going to tackle its own emissions in the next few
06:03years, that is a big problem for the globe, we know that emissions are global. And so, you know,
06:08the US not attacking that is in itself a problem. The second thing which we sort of foresaw coming is
06:12US dropping out of diplomacy. It's been such an important force in the run up to the Paris
06:17Agreement. So it was actually China and US working together that really got the Paris Agreement over
06:22the line with French diplomacy and so on. But it was critical that, you know, the team working on
06:27Paris brought China and US along. So, and they sort of then dropped out under Trump last time,
06:34came back in with Biden. So it's tricky, because you sort of also, there's a lot of like, well, in
06:39four years, when they're back, and you sort of think, well, actually, they've got to have another
06:41election, it's not, it's not sure that they're back. Okay, so that's a big, big issue. But I
06:47think what we hadn't foreseen, no one, as far as I know, foresaw, was this pulling this USAID money
06:54so quickly, which in a way, you think, well, that's remote to climate, maybe, but actually,
06:59what's going to happen now is philanthropies are going to fill that gap, which, again, means there's
07:04less money for climate. So there's a kind of knock on effect of unforeseen things, which,
07:09you know, are really causing the disturbance in terms of how is this actually going to work?
07:14Who's going to pay for what? What are the philanthropies going to do? How does this affect
07:19my project? So we've already had, you know, very small, but like one project where a donor has had
07:23to say, look, we're gonna have to put that on hold while we look at, do we need to plug that money over
07:27here? And we're just, you know, a small cog in this. So it's caused this, this huge amount of disruption.
07:32On the diplomacy front, I think that obviously, the big, big worry is,
07:36does this now empower other countries to say, well, actually, we're not interested in sticking
07:41with Paris either. And that's going to play out through this round of NDCs, you know, the
07:46nationally determined contributions, countries have to revise them this year, mostly they're late at
07:50the moment, they're supposed to have done them by February. So I think that's going to be very
07:54telling, does it start to knock on on through that and countries start to sort of really look inwards,
08:00which is, will be a big mistake. Mr. Trump has also already sort of rolled back some of the
08:06environment regulations in the US. Of course, that will mean that the, you know, some of the
08:11cost of compliance would come down for business. But it's also a test for their, you know, the,
08:18the corporate resolutions that they made out for their climate action. Yeah, you know, and it's a
08:22test case is a litmus test, I would say, you know, for them that, you know, whatever you promised,
08:27you know, are you really going to stand, it's now time to stand up to this promise?
08:32You, you see that playing out? I mean, yeah, it's early days, I'd say,
08:35as I say, we're sort of six weeks into this, and I haven't seen so far a company come out and say,
08:41right, we're dropping. You've seen the banks of rollback, some of that is in the language they're
08:46using, right? So some of them will just sort of, you know, write their annual report and drop certain
08:51terms. In that period, I thought it was really interesting, JP Morgan put out a document about risk and
08:57climate and saying, well, look, we've got to think about it. So there's, and that they weren't doing
09:01that as an act of resilience, that's just a business point of view that companies need to understand
09:05the climate risk. So I think, you know, everyone's understanding of climate risk has deepened,
09:11we're probably still not valuing it correctly. But for lots of businesses, they know this, they know
09:17they've got to react to it, they know that their longevity relies on them having, you know,
09:23plans for climate or dealing with it. So I think some of what we're going to see is, you know,
09:30language changing, rather than commitments changing, I hope. Of course, we're going to see
09:35some companies step back, you know, where they were doing for not particularly deep reasons. But I
09:42think we are still going to see companies doing it, but maybe more quietly, which is problematic,
09:47because, you know, partly what we run very public campaigns, and we want companies to say,
09:52we're doing this and want to encourage others to do that. So that's difficult. So so far,
09:56I haven't seen them dropping it, maybe there's some rewording. But it's going to be, you know,
10:01what do we see from the banks and so on? Certainly, the fossil fuel companies are going to use it as
10:06an excuse to and that we're already seeing that to drop theirs, but that some of those were quite,
10:11let's say, lightly held commitments. Anyway, you know, there's been, do you think the way
10:17Mr. Trump has gone about? Will there be question marks on investments on the EV, which is essentially
10:25the EV and the renewable energy, a lot of investments we have seen over the last few years,
10:29you see some impact on those investments, some question marks around those investments going
10:34forward? Much less, I think, actually, because I think this is a really key part of what's different
10:39between 2017 and now, right, is that the energy transition has made so much progress, the price
10:46of EVs has come right down, the price of renewable electricity has come right down. The International
10:51Energy Agency has said solar is the cheapest form of energy in history. So just those, those sort of
10:56plain economics have radically changed since in the last few years. Also look what's happening in China.
11:03So, I mean, China's a really key player now in all of this, always was in terms of sort of manufacturing
11:09and is making, you know, the sheer volume of electric vehicles that are coming out of China now
11:15and are being sold in Western markets. We didn't see that a few years ago. It's been so quick,
11:20the rise in, I was, I was actually talking to a car salesman before Christmas. He's like, oh,
11:24everyone loves these BYDs. Now, I don't think you'd have caught anyone in the UK buying a Chinese car
11:30five years ago. It just wasn't like, what even are they? You know, it was very kind of domestic.
11:34Those economics have changed radically. The quality of what's coming out, just the range on those
11:38vehicles is amazing. And so I don't think you can put that genie back in the bottle. And I think
11:43that's what people are sort of hanging on to in a way as well, is just the market economics,
11:47how cheap it is, so easy now to roll out and solar and other things. So I think that will keep things
11:54moving along. I think that the things which are challenging, you know, as you get into the kind of
11:59heavy industries, and it's harder to abate, which are just starting to move. Do we still get the same
12:04level of progress on sort of steel decarbonisation if the US isn't in the mix? Interestingly, you know,
12:11also a fallout of the Trump effect, I would say that, you know, it gives, it opens up space for EU and
12:18and the European Union and the United Kingdom to have much more larger say in the climate
12:24narrative, driving the the whole climate action movement. Yeah, you know, you see that happening,
12:29you see UK coming forward and, you know, taking up the space which US is sort of, you know, giving up?
12:37Yes, I think you can see it starting to take the first step. So it put out an early NDC, put out an
12:42ambitious NDC. We've heard and we've seen kind of, you know, that UK diplomatic
12:49peace, which has always been good at kind of taking a step up. Will what's happening in Ukraine
12:55right now sort of derail that? I don't know. I think that's the kind of, again, it's these kind
13:00of wild swan events, I think they're called. You seem to have had sort of five since the new year.
13:06I've lost count, really. But so I think that's interesting. I think the EU has always been the
13:12climate leader. And then it sort of needed the US pulling along with it, maybe slightly behind in
13:18terms of what it's willing to commit to, but putting that diplomatic voice behind it. So I
13:24think the tricky thing now is like von der Leyen is clearly committed on this issue, but she's getting
13:30pressure from kind of the populists that are coming into the kind of EU mix as well. I think
13:36Tusk in Poland is going to be really important. So I think there's really good committed people in the EU.
13:41And what we want to see as well is just them kind of keeping it up. And then I think what will be
13:46interesting is how do they resist that kind of populist push on the right? But also, how do you
13:53now start to see the EU, India, China, Brazil, obviously hosting the COP this year? What are those
14:00diplomatic links like? And of course, the UK, you know, Brexit, which I don't really like to talk
14:06about too much, but sort of personally, but it's, you know, it's dropped the UK out of,
14:12you know, the EU, obviously, and sort of changes the dynamic there on the diplomacy side. But as
14:18but you know, the UK has traditionally been good at that diplomacy role, and has shown signs of wanting
14:23to work with Brazil, and the UAE as they go into this COP. So hopefully, that plays out positively.
14:30But do you see UK working closely with the EU, I would say?
14:35Yes, you do. I mean, that might be the flip side of the Ukraine thing. They seem to be friends again
14:39now. You know, there's a lot of water under that bridge. I don't even know if that's the right,
14:43it's a flood under the bridge. But you know, it's like...
14:46I hope the bridge holds it.
14:47Can the bridge hold? Yeah, no, you can see that, you know, gosh,
14:50you're going to extend this metaphor. But like, it's been interesting to watch kind of
14:54Macron and Starmer kind of getting closer to each other. And of course, the new German
14:59Chancellor coming in. So it's going to be one to watch. But yeah, that is where the hope lies. And
15:05of course, that EU legislation, things like CBAM have been so critical for sending a signal or driving
15:13change in the export economies across Asia, for instance. You know, we do a lot of work in South
15:18Korea, and they can see CBAM coming. And yeah, they find it painful. But again, it's setting a
15:24very clear direction for the future. And that allows you as businesses to innovate or understand
15:28where you need to get to. And those signals and the kind of that sense of this legislation is coming
15:35in four or five years, whenever it is going to come, it sort of sets out that path of how we're
15:40going to get to 2050. Interesting. You know, but there's one elephant in the room.
15:46I feel like there's loads of elephants in the room.
15:47Yeah, actually, there are quite a few elephants in the room. But one, you know, it's been sort of
15:52whispered about, of course, is the, you know, the subsidy given to fossil fuel, you know,
15:58as per our research, what is very often quoted for research is 620 billion 2023 was given out
16:06for different governments globally to subsidize use of fossil fuel, while the comparative figure
16:10for say support for clean energy was, I think, $70 billion. Yeah, you know, that's a huge gap.
16:16The point is that, first of all, it's an unequal fight. Yeah, you know, and secondly, also, of course,
16:21it brings down the cost of energy, you know, the subsidy, but it is an unequal fight. But also,
16:27there's a political angle to it, you know, that the governments are prioritizing, you know, short term
16:33economic and political needs, you know, versus climate. Yeah, you know, how do you think is
16:40this is going to play out? And is there a road map or road ahead for, you know, you know,
16:46bringing down the subsidies for fossil fuel?
16:48I think this is, I mean, I don't have a, I wish I had a better answer, because this is the,
16:52this is the absolutely critical thing. And we and others have been saying we've got to address this.
16:58Because the other thing is, the way that that plays out politically is there's a lot of money
17:04that goes into climate misinformation. And so the narrative, and I don't want to preempt talking
17:12later about myths that you want to bust or whatever, but there's a narrative that climate
17:17costs more money. That comes directly out of the mouths of the fossil fuel industry. And I'm not that
17:22I'm not a conspiracy theorist in any way. I'm always, you know, I'm always like, no, no, no,
17:28there's no big conspiracy. On that one, you can trace it back to fossil fuel money going into climate
17:35misinformation and sort of getting a real, real kind of getting everyone questioning. And I
17:42think one of the issues there is, it's very easy to put narratives out that say net zero is money,
17:48you know, net zero costs more, whatever. On that, on our kind of side of it, we then tend to fight
17:54back with graphs. And that's the bit that I think is so, like, where we have lost the narrative as a
18:00climate world is, you know, with like, I'm no, but if I show you one more graph, then you'll change
18:06behavior. And then on the other side, you've got people going, net zero equals money, don't take my
18:10money away. And everyone's like, I don't want to take my money away. Or, you know, these people
18:13want to take, there was a whole thing, maybe like two years ago, in the States, where there was some
18:21democratic run cities, started put out a ban on gas hookups in new buildings. So basically, you're
18:31saying, right, we need to electrify the world, let's start with new build, electrify everything.
18:36Let's not put natural gas into buildings, you can cook on electricity, especially
18:40the states have a real issue on switching to electric because of their voltage. That's a whole
18:46thing. Whereas in the UK, you can just essentially plug an induction oven in, I assume you could hear
18:49because it's higher voltage. So but if you build it from the start in the US, you can do it, right?
18:54So these Democrat cities, like, right, here's an ordinance, this seems very straightforward, electrify
18:59the buildings. Those ones that were in then kind of Republican states, you saw the states
19:06saying, no, no, no, this is curbing our liberty, you know, so they go straight to that word,
19:10and passed laws saying that cities could not pass these ordinances. And then it got into a culture
19:18war fight, the Democrats are coming for your gas stove. And you saw this crazy stuff happening in,
19:23you know, really serious media, you know, prize my gas stove out of my cold dead hands sort of thing.
19:29And that all that stuff is really kind of coordinated, funded, like you get into this
19:36stuff, which makes climate into a culture war issue. And somehow we're arguing about
19:41gas stoves and which are highly polluting, by the way, you know, come to air quality,
19:45the evidence about kind of asthma and internal cooking on gas, which we've all done for years,
19:50you know, it's crazy. But somehow, there's been very clever ways of just getting hold of that
19:57narrative, and striking right at the heart of what people care about, which is personal freedom,
20:02or whatever, whatever. So, I think that, you know, we've talked about fossil fuel subsidies,
20:07but the sheer amount of money that is in those industries, in order, and the way that they're going
20:13about protecting very short-term industry profits and so on is, yeah, it's the thing that we really,
20:21really need to tackle. And the other issue is that the business models around renewable energy
20:26are harder, you know. So, yeah, it's a big one. But just to understand, you know,
20:34you see, as we go down the energy transition pathway, you know, do consumers and businesses,
20:40you know, do they need to be incentivized? I mean, say, how important is it to give financial
20:46incentives to consumer businesses to go down the energy pathway? Yeah, I think on the electric
20:51vehicle front, that has been incredibly important to get over that, because you always have that,
20:58you know, first mover price, it's always going to be more expensive until you get things up to scale.
21:05And so, you could see in Europe that actually incentivizing, getting rid of that first chunk
21:09of cost for electric vehicles was what kind of got them going. And I think they withdrew,
21:15a lot of countries withdrew those subsidies far, far, far too quickly that the market hadn't quite
21:19tipped. So, I think there are sensible incentives that you can put in. I mean, Norway now is,
21:25it's heavily incentivized electric vehicles and they're getting to, you know, really up and over
21:3050%. I think almost all new vehicles sold there now are electric or some incredible number. And so,
21:35you can see what the role of incentives are to change the economy. I think the problem we've,
21:41you know, one of the problems we've got is that renewable energy is incredibly cheap,
21:47but that is not yet being passed on to the consumer. And that's very different in different markets.
21:52You know, in the UK, we have a subsidy on the electricity part of our bill called the green tariff,
21:58but electricity is what we want people to use. So, what you should be doing is putting that green tariff
22:03onto the gas part of, you know, we have these dual bills because you want to stop gas and
22:08incentivize electricity. So, we've just got it the wrong way around. But on the other hand,
22:11if you put it on the gas piece of the bill, that would be regressive. So, governments are really
22:16wrestling with things, but I think we need to have much more, you know, markets need to look at these
22:21kind of very insensible incentives. How do we get from A to B? And that's where you come back to needing
22:26these long-term plans, because that will help you set out, how do we progress? That is what the UK is good at,
22:32is because we've got the Climate Change Act, and that says that we have to pass, you know,
22:38Parliament has to pass carbon budgets every five years. There's something called the UK Climate
22:43Change Committee. They sort of put the advice together. They published their latest last week
22:48for 2038 to 42. So, it is that really long-term look of like, what do we think is coming? But also,
22:54what technologies do we have now? Or how do we set those structures up? And that's up to Parliament to
22:59legislate. But there aren't many examples of that around the world, and then you've also got to
23:04get onto that track. Interesting, because, you know, I was going through the recommendations of the
23:10Climate Committee, and they said something like 87% cut in emissions by 2040, as for the 1990 level.
23:21But you think that's going to sort of, you know, ensure that enough jobs are going to be created,
23:26enough, and that energy costs have to come down, you know? Yeah, I mean, the thing is,
23:30the UK has done a lot of decarbonisation already, right? So, we were off coal
23:38years ago, or kind of gradually coming off coal, and they've just shut the last coal mine. That was
23:42for other reasons. So, the economics kind of got ahead. And it wasn't, I think the other thing is
23:45that that was not a straightforward transition, right? Anyone who was in the, you know, I grew up in
23:51an era of miners' strikes, and so on. So, you kind of saw, it was a completely different argument then,
23:56but that was a painful transition that the country's undergone. We've also offshored a lot
24:00of our emissions. So, I think it is feasible. What the jobs look like against that, that's hard to say.
24:06You know, if you take a lot of these technologies, yeah, there are fewer jobs. The idea is you then
24:12move those jobs into other sectors. And there's a lot of work going on at the moment around skills,
24:17and kind of how, and trying to, I think you can do it if you take that long-term view,
24:22and sort of say, right, what is our economy going to look like by that year? What skills do we therefore
24:27need? And how do we get from A to B? You've got to plan it out. I think the problem we're going to see
24:32globally, actually, is because we don't have enough of these long-term plans,
24:36as the climate crisis crunches us, we're doing unplanned transitions and not planned transitions. And
24:43that's the kind of big kind of coming back to the kind of tragedy around Trump. And that will delay
24:49those plans, which means we're more like to kind of do those very sort of hasty transitions, because
24:54we are going to have to change at some point. Absolutely. And so, this is really just a kind
24:59of delaying game, which is going to lead to more pain in the longer run, I think. Interesting you
25:02mentioned about the coal issue in UK. India, at some point of time, maybe 10 years from now,
25:08you know, we'll have to do that switch. Yeah. You know, and, you know, the coal,
25:12the dust transition questions do crop up that time. That, you know, what do you do with all the
25:16coal miners or the families which are dependent on coal? You know, is there any sort of takeaway
25:22lessons from UK's own transition from coal to... I think it's just, I mean, I think it's going to have to be
25:29about planning it out. So, it's kind of understanding, yeah, like you say, what is that? When does India
25:34have to get off coal? I mean, I think sooner than it thinks is probably the answer. I think what's
25:38been really interesting, and you might have more, will have more insight than I do, but I do remember
25:44in 2017, the last time President Trump dropped out of Paris, India and China were quite quick to say,
25:49well, maybe we might think about it too. And I haven't heard that as much this time, maybe a few
25:54rumblings, certainly not hearing that from China, but I don't know in India whether there is some
25:58sentiment around that. But I think what we've seen since then is a much clearer tying of we're going to,
26:04you know, economic progress and renewable electricity, renewable energy are seen as much
26:10more tightly put together. We have the energy mission here and things like that. Exactly.
26:14And I'm not going to pretend to be a deep expert on that, but I think that has been a change we've
26:19seen from the top of understanding that actually, how do we use renewables to hit other development
26:25goals and have it as a path to development? So, that's kind of step one, but I think I haven't
26:30necessarily seen what's our plan out of coal. And for the UK, it was obviously thermal coal first,
26:36and then we've still got sort of coke and coal in the mix from steel. So, there's kind of those
26:40two big transitions that you need to make. Absolutely. Indian government still now doesn't
26:46have an official roadmap for the transition, for the transition, but there are institutions which
26:52are working on it, working on the ground on this. Yeah. Interesting. You know, you mentioned,
26:57referred to the fact that a lot of banks in the last couple of years have sort of,
27:02you know, reworded or backtracked on their net zero, you know, whatever.
27:08Global, the Glasgow Financial Alliance. Exactly. Exactly. So, point is that, you know,
27:14you see that having an impact on the climate finance flow globally? Or is there, or are we sort of
27:21being alarmist? I don't think we can ever be alarmist enough. I think we might be a bit too
27:27casual about this crisis. I think it's really disappointing from the banks. Now, I do think
27:30they are getting a deeper sense of risk. And you do wonder whether there are, you know,
27:38whether there's big ticket projects out there that you wonder whether they really will get funded.
27:43Because if you do a discounted cash flow out over 30 or 40 years of your asset life,
27:49banks know that years 20 to 40, they can't, they surely can't get a return. So, who's investing in
27:55coal right now? Who's investing? So, take an example, you know, back to Trump, but, you know,
28:01drill, baby, drill. And Exxon, who's not in any way climate hero, there's no, you know,
28:06Exxon had been one of the worst, to be honest, said, well, actually, we're not going to drill because
28:11the economics aren't there. And actually, we're fully maxed out in the US. So, what are the
28:16reality, you know, how much of this is rhetoric? Yeah. And how much is it going to play out? I
28:20don't know. And of course, there will be more than there would have been. Yeah. But are we going to
28:24see a sudden explosion of fossil fuels and coal mine? I'm not convinced by that. Because I think
28:30that in the end, go back to that JP Morgan risk thing, they're going to have to price that in,
28:34they're going to have to price out. Well, what happens, you know, 10 years from now,
28:3920 years from now? Is it realistic that I've got a 40 year asset on my hand? And that stranded asset
28:44risk is going up. And the understanding of that is going up. So, I'm not sure. I don't want to be
28:51casual about it. I think it's really disheartening to see what's going on at the banks. But I don't know
28:58how that's going to play out yet. Are we going to see these huge investments in coal or fossil fuels?
29:03I don't know. You know, interestingly, the climate group has been in India,
29:07working with Indian governments and companies for the last 15 years. Yes. Yeah.
29:10And pretty quietly, I would say. Yeah. Yeah.
29:13Tell me, like, from the time the climate group, of course, you joined them later, but
29:18at the time they started working in India, could you take us through what sort of
29:24change in attitude of the government and the businesses we have seen, you know, towards climate?
29:29Yeah. For the last 15 odd years?
29:30That's a good question. As in, it's hard to answer.
29:35You know, I think we work with very ambitious businesses here. So, I'd say a lot of those
29:40tended to be out in front understanding and understanding the issues. And we work with
29:46some Indian headquartered businesses and a lot of global businesses who are, you know,
29:50have major operations here and then therefore want to understand how to decarbonize.
29:54Certainly, I think like along with the rest of the world, the kind of understanding has got,
29:59has deepened. And I think we've seen, you know, over the years, the sort of ebb and flow on how much
30:05companies want to speak out about it, how much they want to sort of push the government or go with
30:09the flow a bit. I think when I joined, we'd recently done a project on LED rollout, which was,
30:16you know, it was a really good project. Whereas we focused much more in recent years on corporate
30:22commitments. But then how do you translate those into action? So, at the moment, we're doing
30:27a lot of work on steel and we've got a big project on concrete. So, I think along with the rest of
30:32the world, there's this evolution into the heavy industry companies moving from, they've always
30:38been quite serious here about energy efficiency. Partly is, you know, licensed to operate or
30:42understanding that's going to be a big cost, but also it's quite hard to do about some, you know,
30:47there's a lot of those processes you can't do much about. So, therefore, let's start with energy
30:51efficiency. But now we're seeing companies engaging much more in actually how we're going to make this
30:56transition. So, that's been good to see. With state and regional governments we work with, I think it's about
31:0115 or so. You know, we've done projects there, including something called the State Climate
31:06Fellows, which is putting professionals into state governments to help work directly on climate
31:11transition plans. And you can see those plans getting more ambitious over time. So, that's all
31:16been good to see. So, I'd say, yeah, general progress in that period, but like the rest of the world,
31:20none of it is ever fast enough for what we'd like to see. But we have very good, deep engagement with a
31:26small number of companies, I'd say. And that's been good. I had a nice email the other day from
31:32someone in an Indian company going, wow, what do you think about travel? It's nice to be able to
31:36exchange the thoughts, you know. Well, you know, RE100 and EV100 are two key flagship programs that you
31:42sort of, you know, you steer. What sort of traction do you see for that? You know,
31:47there are Indian companies which are part of the group.
31:49Yeah, I think one of the differences between Indian companies maybe and sort of European
31:56or British or American companies is particularly, I'd say those kind of Western companies, they like
32:00to make a big commitment. They're like, we don't know how to get there, but we're going to make the
32:03commitment and then we're going to work it out. And what we've seen from Indian companies and actually
32:08others in other parts of Asia is more of a sense of, no, no, no, we want to know the whole path before
32:15we're going to make that commitment. And it's just, it's a different approach and that's fine. So,
32:19we've had to adjust a bit. So for example, on the Steel Zero, that's a commitment to zero carbon
32:25steel by 2050. And no one really does quite know how to get there. There are interim moments. And
32:30so we've had a lot of UK companies signing up for that and other American companies who are saying,
32:37yeah, we can see how to do 2030. So we'll make the commitment because that will take us there.
32:41What we're doing now in India is gathering a group that almost pre-commitment who want to get onto
32:48that path. And at the moment, I sort of signing up to say, yeah, we will explore that path. We'll get
32:54there soon. And we've been talking about that this week. So we're hoping to launch that in the next few
32:58weeks and focusing in on specific sectors. So what we do as an organization is, yeah, we have our big
33:03global campaigns, but also we'll tailor those into the different markets we're in understanding
33:08both sort of the culture of business in that market, but also where is the market on different
33:13issues. Our policy work now is getting, you know, very kind of market specific. So you can have a
33:20global policy goal that we need to, or we can say things like we need to reduce fossil fuel subsidies.
33:25But when you get into a market, you need to look quite specifically. So we've done a lot of work.
33:29For example, I was mentioning South Korea earlier, you know, there's some very specific regulations there
33:35that say you can't put solar within 100 meters of residential dwellings. Well, the rest of the world has
33:40rolled out solar on residential. So that's going to stop you. And then you go there and people are
33:45like, well, South Korea can't really do solar. You're like, we, you could, if you got rid of
33:50that regulation in half the districts or something. So we're doing work there that's very specifically
33:54on how do you pull out that, like, where's that regulation come from? How do you get them to
34:00change it? Because that would unlock pent up investment from business. So it's that sort of approach.
34:04Interesting. You know, in India, climate, I think, I think also your, the fact that environment,
34:14climate and, you know, the, the, the weather issues, especially in Delhi, the pollution,
34:19you know, pollution has been something which has been on the headlines in Indian media for the last,
34:24especially during the winter months, you know, how do you sort of, you know, link it up,
34:28if you're talking of a climate, building a climate narrative for India to pollution, to climate and
34:35to overall, you know, the net zero goal, what sort of, how do you sort of build it up in terms of
34:40I think you can show that the solutions to both are the same. I think if you go the route of like,
34:45well, let's demonstrate that climate is exact. I mean, it is exacerbating the problem. We know that.
34:50But that's quite a tough scientific argument to make. And I go back to this thing of like,
34:53let me show you one more graph. I don't keep showing you graphs. What I can do is say,
34:57look, electric vehicles will solve these things. Cleaner energy will solve this, you know,
35:03how is diesel playing in and all these sorts of things. I know there's a whole issue as well around
35:07farming and some of those practices. And so if you can link some of that together as well,
35:11but that isn't an area where I'm going to pretend to be an expert, but I think it's about showing
35:14that solutions to these problems are, are similar. And then looking at good practice from elsewhere.
35:21But again, I come back to these kinds of, how do you get that narrative quite simple?
35:24And it's not a case of, well, let's solve air pollution and then get on to climate. It's like,
35:29how do we solve both these things at the same time? And there was a, you know, there used to be,
35:34I've been working on sustainability too long now, but like there's a, as in too long to still feel like
35:39we're fighting the same battles. But there was always, there used to be this cartoon, which everyone
35:46working in sustainability used to see, you've probably seen it, which is a bunch of people
35:50in the audience. And there's a lecturer saying, you know, pointing to a list of benefits like cleaner
35:55air, better health, something, you know, and there's someone in the audience going, but what
35:58if it's all a hoax? You know, so there's, so that used to be the argument about climate change and
36:02saying, well, you could do all these things anyway, but so many of these, the solutions are the same.
36:08And I think if we can make that argument, it's much more, it's much crisper than trying to again,
36:12link, well, it's particulate matter in parts per million.
36:15Exactly. And this is a headline, which we have been sort of, you know, dealing with every year,
36:20I think, you know, and every winter for two couple of months, we'll sort of start talking
36:26about it. People will roll their sleeves, you know, talk about it. And then we'll go back to life.
36:32I mean, the advantage of the air pollution is you can actually see the issue, you know,
36:36it's very visible and people can feel it more importantly inside, all that kind of stuff.
36:41So how do you use that as a kind of communications tool around like, this is the problem we need to
36:46work on, I think is critical. You know, you have been in the climate space for,
36:50I think more than two decades now, close to three decades.
36:52Yeah, don't say close to three decades.
36:54Okay.
36:54I can't be that old.
36:57So, you know, are there any sort of, you did mention to some of the myths, you know,
37:02and are any sort of climate myths that you feel needs to be debunked and, you know,
37:09we need to sort of talk about them much more?
37:11I think the main one is this point that the climate has been set up in opposition to economic
37:18development.
37:18Okay.
37:19And if we can unpack that, it's not, you know, there's a lot of technologies,
37:22there are a lot of jobs out there, there are good clean jobs, there's good clean energy.
37:26As I say, the IEA has said, solar energy is the cheapest form of energy in human history.
37:33So why is that not cheap? Why is that not cheap? Like you said, it's fossil fuel subsidies,
37:38completely distort markets, and we haven't managed to pass that on to people.
37:41And that's a political decision, wherever that's being taken, whether it's just
37:45political kind of apathy, or it's kind of deeper than that, that's going to vary. But, you know,
37:51we need to, we need to get that benefit of the cheap forms of energy through, and then we'll see
37:57how these things can go hand in hand. And I think the problem that that's led to is there's a thought,
38:02and this was certainly used to be the approach in India of like, we're going to do these things
38:05sequentially, we'll develop, and then we'll decarbonize. And, and I, and I get the kind of,
38:13you know, there's a really compelling argument, like, this is how the West developed,
38:16you all got rich, I mean, this is a bit the kind of common differentiator, right? But like,
38:20you got rich like this, this is what we need to do. But we also know that decarbonizing is really,
38:25really expensive. And there are ways to, to grow in a kind of zero carbon way. So it's how do we
38:32get off that quite fair kind of moralistic look at the rest of the world and saying, come on,
38:39you know, it's our turn, but actually saying, where are the advantages for us in going this? And
38:44how do we actually get that route map, which gets development? And I'm not just talking about India,
38:48there's this is coming up in lots of places. So I think that's like, that's the main myth. And I
38:54think, again, the other the other bits of it are, there's been a really good job of kind of,
39:01you know, I don't know, probably not particularly in India, but particularly in the US of like,
39:07climate change is a left wing issue. It's like somehow identity politics, it's woke. I mean,
39:12this is UK, they keep talking about woke capitalism, it's infuriating. Yeah. Because
39:18you're like, no, like you say that subsidies are distorting everything. Exactly. You're like, just,
39:22it's plain economics, I think, you know, we don't need... It's just plain economics. Again,
39:25I have some graphs for you. But yeah, so I think we can get under, those are the sort of things we
39:32need to do. And I get frustrated, because there's a lot of talk in climate world, oh, you need a new
39:36narrative. And we do. But I think we then tend towards very elaborate narratives. And I wish we
39:43could kind of simplify and get it back to kind of improving people's lives, which we will do,
39:48you know, if you can, if you could solve pollution in Delhi, you would make people's lives better,
39:51right? Exactly. And a lot of that will come through, you know, zero carbon technology.
39:56Thank you. Thank you, Helen. Thanks for your time. And the fact that, you know, we could take time off.
40:00And I understand that you need to run for... Yes, I need to run. But thank you so much. It's been good to
40:05talk to you. Pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks.