INSIGHTS

 

 

 

 

What’s the role of an influencer in the effort to address climate change? Listen to Jason Mitchell discuss with Assaad Razzouk, CEO of Gurīn Energy, about what’s at stake in the fight for climate action, how to think about the energy transition in the context of this year’s global electoral cycle, and, of course, why we need more angry clean energy people.

Recording date: 28 March 2024

Assaad Razzouk

Assaad Razzouk is the CEO of Gurīn Energy. He is a clean energy entrepreneur, podcaster and commentator based in Singapore. He was formerly Chairman and CEO of Sindicatum Renewable Energy and is a Board member of ClientEarth, the environmental charity using the power of the law to protect people and planet and a member of the International Council of the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is also a fellow podcaster who hosts “The Angry Clean Energy Guy” podcast and the author of Saving the Climate Without the Bullshit.

 

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcription was generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers and may contain errors. As a part of this process, this transcript has also been edited for clarity.

Jason Mitchell:

I am Jason Mitchell, head of Responsible Investment Research at Man Group. You’re listening to a Sustainable Future, a podcast about what we’re doing today to build a more sustainable world tomorrow.

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast, and I hope everyone is staying well.

So something I’m really interested in is voice. In other words, the language, mediums and platforms we use in sustainability world, which brings me to Assaad Razzouk, CEO of Gurīn Energy, who in my mind is the rare person who combines entrepreneurial, academic, and I guess influencer, if you want to call it that, credentials in renewable energy to produce an outsized, opinionated, and frankly, sometimes disagreeable voice in the clean energy space. And while we might disagree on topics like the efficacy of institutional investors in addressing climate change or the potential of carbon capture technologies, which he calls a climate con, and I slightly disagree, it’s nonetheless a pretty constructive discussion.

And regardless, I really recognise the passion and thoughtfulness he brings around the need to drive behaviour change without burning everything down. In fact, there’s a quote from Robert Kiyosaki that epitomises my feelings on this, which goes, “It’s easier to stand on the sidelines, criticise and say why you shouldn’t do something, but the sidelines are crowded, so get in the game.” Assaad is very much in the climate game, which is why it’s great to have him on the podcast. We talk about what’s at stake in the fight for climate action, how to think about the energy transition and the context of this year’s global electoral cycle, and of course, why we need more angry clean energy people.

Aside from Gurīn Energy, Assaad is a clean energy entrepreneur, podcaster and commentator based in Singapore. He was formerly chairman and CEO of Sindicatum Renewable Energy, and is a board member of ClientEarth, the environmental charity using the power of the law to protect people and planet. And he’s also a member of the International Council of the National University of Singapore, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He’s also a fellow podcaster who hosts the Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast, and the author of Saving the Climate Without the Bullshit. Welcome to the podcast, Assaad Razzouk. It’s great to have you here, and thank you so much for taking the time.

Assaad Razzouk:

Thank you, Jason. It’s fantastic to be with you.

Jason Mitchell:

I know fellow podcasters. So Assaad, you’ve got an incredibly interesting, diverse background. I guess I have to imagine it helps you examine the energy transition and climate action through a pretty unique entrepreneurial academic and influencer/commentator lens. Can you walk us through that arc and how it’s developed over time?

Assaad Razzouk:

Of course. Back in 2006, Jason, I had a trip to China that opened my eyes to the ravages of climate change very much in a first-hand sense. So let me put it this way. If you’re sitting in New York or London or Singapore or Hong Kong or Tokyo, so a global financial centre, you don’t walk around the street and notice live the impacts of climate change on people and health. So that all changed for me from 2006 in a province in China called Shanxi Province, which is the coal capital of China. Because I landed and I could not help seeing people with terrible skin conditions or terrible teeth, and I pretty quickly figured out that all of that was the impact of coal, its production and burning on their health. And then once you see something like that, you never really unsee it. So today, based in Singapore and travelling all over Asia, I’m very much at the forefront of climate change constantly. I see the impacts in all the major cities. I see the impacts in remote provinces where our projects are. So over time what’s happened is I just became more and more militant, perhaps is the right word, about taking action about that problem and making sure that both my job and my extracurricular activities are all aligned with that objective.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. I like that point about taking action. As I mentioned in the intro, you host the Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast. Why does the world need more angry, clean energy people? What’s at stake?

Assaad Razzouk:

There is a tremendously enormous amount at stake. We tend to focus in our daily news feeds on events that are by definition of a very short term nature. What we very often don’t have time to do or most people don’t have time to do is take a step back and actually watch the medium term trends, even the short term trends in terms of the transformation of our habitat into potentially a hostile environment. This year alone, there’s been just a disaster after disaster on the climate front. Everything from record surfers, ocean temperatures to hundreds of heating records being broken around the world to the hottest February ever and probably one of the hottest march ever, et cetera. And when you then contrast what’s going on with the urgency associated with global action on climate, it’s extremely difficult for you not to get angry with our just seeming incompetence to tackle the problem.

Jason Mitchell:

I think you are, I think this is fair to say, a climate influencer. You’ve got a very large social media following on X, formerly Twitter, as well as on LinkedIn. You’ve got a book as well as the podcast I just mentioned. In short, you’ve got a very big voice. What kind of responsibility does that bring with it? I’m reminded by an episode that I just recorded with Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia who talks about the social responsibility of scientists. But how do you think about that in that context?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, it’s not just my responsibility to be honest. It’s everybody’s responsibility to be aware that we are transforming our habitat in a manner which is going to make it hostile to us being on it. And then number two, to do something about it. But when you do something about it not to go for pretend solutions. You’ve got to actually analyse the solutions and then sift through the noise of what’s impactful versus what’s not impactful to select what matters.

Jason Mitchell:

So 4.2 billion people go to the ballot box this year, which means that government support for the energy transition in its various forms will either directly or indirectly be up for vote. The EU elections will have implications obviously for the EU Green Deal just as the US elections should have some implications for the future of the IRA. And now, I realise it’s impossible to call elections, but how do you think about a potential reordering of the policy agenda potentially away from Green Deal decarbonization and more towards energy security or defence?

Assaad Razzouk:

It’s worrisome to say the least. On the positive side, I’m not sure what politicians decide actually matters that much in the energy sector and in terms of electrification. It will impact the speed at which we transform but not the direction of travel. Basically today, there is no competition for solar plus batteries, plus wind, or any combination of this three. In terms of powering our lifestyles in all their aspects and our manufacturing system and in short order, our transportation system as well. What the elections will impact is the speed at which we move because the speed requires intent and strong political will. So if you weaken that will, you’re still going to get there. But to put it into perspective, instead of delivering a very bad result, say warming of somewhere between two and two and a half degrees centigrade above pre-industrial times, you’ll deliver an absolutely awful result above that. That’s going to be the impact, but I think the direction of travel is now locked in.

Jason Mitchell:

I guess to that point, the energy trilemma has been a pretty valuable framework for thinking about policy priorities, particularly since the energy crisis in 2021, and those being decarbonization, price, affordability and energy security. How do you think about policymakers balancing those objectives? I realise that you obviously have a renewable energy company in Singapore, but I think from a global perspective with your international relations hat on, if packages like the EU’s Green Deal and the US Inflation Protection Act, does it ever worry you that these policy responses are increasingly seen as anti-competitive?

Assaad Razzouk:

Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, that is very much what I would call a big oil propaganda talking point. There is nothing of the sort. I mean, there’re cheaper to start with, and so there is no economics question to speak of. From a security perspective, I mean, what could be more secure than relying on your own natural resources, i.e, sun, wind, and water rather than on fossil fuels that you have to burn just in order for you to buy them again so that you can burn them again? And the attendant insecurity of supply associated with that.

To be honest, one of the more frustrating aspects of this issue is the amount of these propaganda points that just seem to have a life of their own because they’re backed up. And this is documented, I’m not making it up, hundreds of millions of dollars of propaganda money, for lack of better word, just to maximise the very short-term profits of a few at the expense of everybody else. I mean, there you go. That’s a very good reason why my podcast is called the Angry Clean Energy Guy because it’s very hard to see this and not get angry.

Jason Mitchell:

Can you talk more about that then?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, we started with the energy trilemma, so sustainability, decarbonizing energy, and then security. And if you just focus on these, energy security, energy sustainability and energy affordability, it’s very clear that if you want affordability, you have to go as close as possible to 100% renewable energy. If you want security, you should definitely do the same. And if you want sustainability, everything else really is not sustainable. So it’s like what is there to discuss?

Jason Mitchell:

I guess as a renewable energy producer, how do you read the politics of energy prices into all of this? Is decarbonization possible without higher energy prices or does it cut both ways? In other words, are higher energy prices an obstacle for decarbonization? There’s a real concern, obviously, around the cost of the energy transition.

Assaad Razzouk:

Yeah. Again, that’s a very odd point. Right now, according to the International Monetary Fund, not me, we’re subsidising fossil fuels globally to the extent of $7 trillion. Some of it is cash, so call that a trillion. The other is externalities. So think about your lungs and your health because that’s what you are paying effectively to oil and gas companies as a subsidy. So we’re subsidising fossil fuels by 7 trillion because they don’t pay for their pollution and because we give them tax benefits and other support directly as governments. And therefore, the whole concept of cost is completely upside down. If you want the cheapest ever energy in the history of the world, you will go towards 100% renewable energy. Energy systems are at the moment at the service of the fossil fuel industry, and that is why you pay high energy bills in most countries. It’s not the other way around.

Jason Mitchell:

You’ve been pretty vocal about the idea that individual action makes little difference in the climate crisis. Instead, you’ve said that we really need to go after the fossil fuel producers themselves. How do you think about the investor shift? Certainly that I’ve seen that has refocused attention from the supply side, i.e, fossil fuel producers, more to the demand side, i.e, refocusing on other sectors that are fossil fuel dependent, transport, property, industrial companies who tend to be major oil and gas consumers.

Assaad Razzouk:

Look, there’s no question that energy efficiency, for example, must be a focus because we are incredibly inefficient when we use energy, whether it’s at home or in businesses or anywhere else. However, look at the plastic problem, for example. So plastic is 99% oil, and we are being absolutely buried with it. Now, do you think it’s easier to ask 8 billion people to start changing their daily habits with respect to plastic? Or would you rather we regulate the 10 biggest or 20 biggest companies that are at the source of the plastic pandemic by forcing them to pay for their pollution and assume liability for their product? I mean, to me, there is no question that regulating the 20 companies is the right way to do it, and pretending that we’re going to change the behaviour of 8 billion people is just an excuse to actually not do anything.

Jason Mitchell:

There’s been, and again, I’m speaking from the investor world where I exist, but there’s been a number of investors who have, I’d say effectively given up, they’ve divested from heavy emitters, particularly the oil and gas industry. For instance, after five years of engagement, the Church Commissioners of England have formally decided to divest of fossil fuels. You’ve seen other influential people like Christiana Figueres, the former UNFCCC head has also given up in an article that’s titled, I Thought Fossil Fuel Firms Could Change. I was wrong. And I guess I’m wondering there’s this history or this effort of engagement that hasn’t really paid out in your mind. What does history teach us in terms of engaging with fossil fuel producers? Should we be refocusing our efforts in other places?

Assaad Razzouk:

Yeah. That’s a very interesting question and topic. So let me maybe say three things about this from an investor lens. I think first of all, investors, by and large have been very disappointing on the climate agenda. There’s almost no exceptions to that statement that I just made because what they generally do is they pass the buck on the problem, and even the best meaning ask governments to take action rather than taking action themselves. So that’s I think, the overarching condition of the investment community right now.

Jason Mitchell:

Well, can I but in for one second. I mean, so when you say take action themselves, I mean there’s an ongoing perpetual debate around what that actually means. I mean, does it mean more engagement and behaviour change or does it mean just complete divestment, which means it becomes someone else’s problem?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, I’m not personally in favour of divestment, and it’s not because I think that oil and gas companies will reform. They won’t reform. They’re going to go down the horse buggy manufacturer industry where most of them will just disappear, except in this case, they have been collecting power and profits for 100 years, and it’s therefore going to be difficult because they’re going to make an enormous amount of noise on their way to disappearing. But it doesn’t mean that selling their stock is the right answer. On the contrary, if anything, you need to buy more of their stock in order to ultimately either take them over and close them down or influence them and make it very difficult from inside. When you divest, you’ve basically lost your voice at the table, and I would not do that personally. So I don’t think that’s the right answer.

But investors have to focus on their cost of capital. So what you have to do ultimately, if you want to change the world, is increase the cost of capital, of oil, gas, coal, petrochemical companies to an extent where money will become very, very expensive to them. And to increase that cost of capital effectively, all we have to do is price their pollution. Now, investors don’t wait for governments to come and tell them that they need to weigh discount rates, say, with taking into account factors like interest rates or political risk or a whole array of risks. But in the case of carbon, they blatantly just ignore it completely, and it doesn’t feature in how they look at the cash flows of the oil and gas and coal companies. And I could go on for a while, Jason, but net-net, we need to focus on how we can increase their cost of capital, not take virtue-signalling action by divesting their stock, which really just ends up with somebody else and adds nothing to the conversation.

Jason Mitchell:

Yeah. I want to keep on in this topic because it’s obviously a little bit complicated, but you happen to be a trustee of ClientEarth. What do you make of the shifting legal climate around this area? Thanks to the efforts of ClientEarth, I’m a big fan, but there’s been a lot of accomplishments around the world, including the high court win against the UK government as well as the Torres Strait Islander complaint. So big wins to ClientEarth. But recent judgments seem to suggest it’s potentially going to get harder going forward. The UK Court of Appeals blocked the ClientEarth climate case against Shell, and more recently the ExxonMobil lawsuit against the shareholder resolution from Arjuna Capital and follow this seemed to support that. What’s your read?

Assaad Razzouk:

Let me answer that question by taking a step back. When you focus on individual action, an enormous amount of individual choices that we make have no impact on the climate problem when we change them. And I’d be happy to come back later if you want on this podcast to talk about these. But then when you focus on what matters in terms of individual contribution to climate action, one of the areas that are easiest to identify is litigation, i.e, what can I as a citizen do to solve the climate problem through top-down action via the court system? Another one is through my work. What can I do at work to change what my employer is doing? Because a lot of people spend all their day at work, but forget about the climate agenda while at work, and then they remember it when they go home. And that I think is something we can work on, plus obviously communicating about the problem.

But going back to litigation, there’s no question that in the menu of systemic top-down approaches to tackle the problem, litigation is probably the most promising one. And there’s been a tsunami of climate lawsuits, as you correctly just mentioned around the world with incredible growth from 2015 until today. I’m actually quite optimistic that this is going to continue and it’s going to increase, and that it will deliver a result.

But like everything else, we needed to deliver a result probably faster than it will. There’s no way that the court systems at the end, and I hope that’s this decade as opposed to next decade, so say by 2030, aren’t going to have built a consensus or a bottom-up approach or precedence from multiple lawsuits that says that polluters must pay for their pollution and must take responsibility for their products.

We’re going to get there. We just need to do a lot more of it. So you and me, as citizens can send resources and time to those NGOs, and ClientEarth isn’t the only one that are specialised in that area. And I do hope that we will see more of them around the world because that’s certainly impactful and it will affect change.

Jason Mitchell:

The role of the individuals come up a couple of times during our discussion, but what exactly is the responsibility of the individual as opposed to the firm? I ask this because behaviour change keeps reappearing as sometimes a very fundamental element in energy transition road maps. For example, the IAEA’s net zero emissions by 2050 scenario points to it… As does the UK’s net zero strategy. In some cases, it represents as much as 5 or even 10% of the emissions reduction assumptions. So how do you think about behaviour change, particularly around energy efficiencies? What are the right incentives or disincentives?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, the question is in some ways precisely the problem. Because once you go down that rabbit hole, you’re going to develop solutions that by and large are not going to work. Let me maybe put that in slightly different words. I have not met anywhere in the world and I am an extensive traveller, a teenager or anybody in their twenties that doesn’t actually genuinely and deeply care about the environment and the climate agenda. I really genuinely have never met somebody who doesn’t. They all do. Not only that, our education systems I think have delivered that message and are increasingly delivering it to our children soon grandchildren and what have you.

So they all want to do the right thing. The question though is what is that right thing that I’m supposed to do? And I, as you know, published a whole book saying, “Look, if you think you can virtue signal that you’re doing the right thing by, I don’t know, eating less meat or flying less or going vegan or what have you, or recycling, be careful because in fact you are not. That is not where you should invest your energy if you want to change the world.” So that’s like a very big topic, and we can go into its details as much as you’d like, but that’s the main takeaway from that topic.

Jason Mitchell:

The notion of extended producer responsibility is a pretty compelling one I think I’ve heard you talk about as well to address the whole carbon externality problem. In fact, it already exists in areas like electronic waste. So the question is why not fossil fuels? There’s an Oxford proposal led by Professor Myles Allen that follows that energy producers can effectively extract as much as they like so long as they capture and sequester it, the carbon emissions. What do you make of that proposal? Is it destined to be stuck in a chicken and egg problem, i.e, a policy dilemma? Does it take the government to regulate first or how do you incentivize private sector investment to drive it forward first?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, carbon capture and storage is a climate con. It doesn’t work and it’s not going to work. And I am therefore inherently suspicious whenever carbon capture and storage comes up because it’s an excuse really to continue to do what you’re doing, with the future promise that somehow everything is going to just magically be fixed. We have a track record for carbon capture and storage. It’s crystal clear, it doesn’t work. And it’s not the only climate con. Another one of my favourites is sustainable aviation fuels or any hydrogen, which isn’t green or even direct air capture. They’re not going to solve anything at scale. And as a matter of fact, most of them, if you look into the detail, contribute more to the problem.

The solution isn’t for us to force companies to do something. They just need to pay. It’s about paying for their pollution because if they paid for their pollution, their products would be completely uncompetitive. They just be priced out. But they have such power in our political system that they simply get away with that. They get away with no producer responsibility and no payment for pollution. And you see it again and again and again. It’s in your wastewater and in the air that you breathe and in the food that you eat. I mean, it’s everywhere. It’s in marine impacts on the oceans. I mean, all of that is just pollution that somebody did. Generally these 90 big polluters in the history of the world, there’s only 90, who haven’t paid for any of it.

Jason Mitchell:

I want to press you a little bit on the CCS or CCUS point. I mean, is it really right to dismiss all of that? Are you saying anything outside of nature-based solutions just is uneconomic and unscalable and doesn’t work? I asked this because I’m working on a podcast episode right now with a company called neustark in Switzerland that is taking the emissions from biogas and permanently sequestering them in demolition concrete. It’s just a matter of scale. In fact, they announced a six-year deal with Microsoft. So it does seem like there are areas that are lower risk, more interesting versus technological moonshots, like direct air capture.

Assaad Razzouk:

Look, the data I think is pretty clear. Carbon capture in storage is a fig leaf to produce more oil while greenwashing and it’s never worked. The most coherent CCS facility in the world is one called Sleipner, which Equinor, the Norwegian oil company has built. That facility has been discharging for 28 years, 25 times more CO₂ than it has sequestered. I mean, this has been a lie all along. And yes, okay, there’s a lot of people who wanted to work because obviously then of course oil and gas companies can just continue and do what they’re doing.

But you have to ask yourself, are the oil and gas companies maybe pushing that line? And the undisputed answer is yes, because it’s hugely convenient to them. And we’ve had a hearing in the US Congress where if you go through the details, you’ll see these are lines pushed by people who don’t want to change because they are making a lot of money in the very short term, and they’re all incentivized to maximise their 12 months pay. That’s just the reality that we’re in, and we have to be very suspicious.

Jason Mitchell:

How do you think about the role of business, and I would say also investors, enabling an environment where government can push ahead on policy. There’s this, I think, constant refrain that nothing happens unless government regulation legislation really drive it through. But is that really true? Policy I guess my point is policy doesn’t form in a vacuum, and to some degree government follows where business leads. So what can we do to create the right, call it, enabling environment for government?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, I agree with you. Business is possibly the most important lever that we have to affect these policy choices. Now, there’s a lot of businesses that are actually doing the right thing. Certainly on my side, on the renewable energy side of things, I do see that because the demand to procure renewable energy from businesses is a critical factor globally for the acceleration of renewable energy, which is really one of only two absolutely necessary tools that we have ready to deploy to fight back against the climate crisis. The other one being to stop deforestation.

But if you look at deforestation for example, and you ask yourself, how am I going to stop deforestation when in fact all the rules are already there? I mean it is illegal to deforest. The answer then is regulation. And there you need a core group of, well-meaning businesses to support these regulations that, for example, force you to trace the source of what you’re selling to consumers. Such regulations like the EU’s no deforestation regulation is what I’m talking about.

But just as you have on the renewable side, businesses that are pushing because they understand that it cuts their costs down, on the deforestation side, you have businesses that are pushing the other way because they think it’s increasing their costs and everybody and the planet be damned. So there’s a balance between these two weighty actors, governments, and businesses. But there’s no question in my mind that businesses, if well-meaning, have almost more to do and more responsibility than governments.

Jason Mitchell:

And how are you thinking about this with current energy? How are you thinking about, again, growing your business but also creating and enabling environment for government policy?

Assaad Razzouk:

Well, the renewable energy as a whole, Jason, is very small and has very little voice. That’s just the fact. So for example, if you’re the CEO of Exxon or Shell or Chevron and you travel around the world, you will almost invariably have access to the head of state. You could just use Google to check what I just said. The renewable energy CEOs simply don’t. They just do not have that kind of access. So the only thing we can do as an industry is we can keep our head down and we can try and develop renewable energy projects and then deliver them as fast as we can because we are the cheapest in order to effectively contribute to fighting to the problem from the bottom up.

But I still haven’t seen anywhere around the world a collection of renewable energy, CEOs that credibly have access to heads of state and affect policy. But I definitely have seen the opposite, i.e, oil and gas heads of state who continuously have access and not just to governments, but also to the media, for example, to the financial services firms, to the investment firms. And that’s because they’ve collected those fake profits for 100 years. And the reason I call them fake is because they were collected without pricing pollution, which means the math was wrong all along.

Jason Mitchell:

The idea around greenwashing and fakes and fig leafs is pretty prominent in what you write and talk about. Does that mean that you are encouraged by a lot more strong government regulation? I point to the EU where it’s particularly much more prescriptive. Is the way towards solving the problem that you talk about, better disclosure, improved transparency?

Assaad Razzouk:

Most definitely, yes, but you don’t need to just look at the EU. If you look at China or the United States, they both have the equivalent body of rules and regulations. I mean, the Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest climate action package in the history of the world by far, probably, because it’s going to tally up to several trillion dollars by the time they do the numbers and it’s used properly, and it’s just simply going to electrify America. However, you have incumbent industries that are fighting rearguard battles to slow everything down. And where we end up as human beings is in how much we will affect that warming over the next few decades. So whether we warm by two degrees or two and a half or three degrees or more above the pre-industrial age.

So therefore, everybody’s efforts really should be focused on backing those legislations, on acting on them, on trying to fight back against the nefarious lobbying and propaganda that’s coming from those who are richer than us at the moment, far, far richer and far, far more powerful, but are clearly losing ground. And it’s the balance between these two that I think we have to watch for, which is why greenwashing and fig leaves and many other terms like that are used. It’s to identify propaganda when you see it, oil and gas propaganda specifically.

Jason Mitchell:

Got it. I’ve got one last question. You’ve talked about how companies who’ve tried to do good have often been published by the market. In your book, you point to Danone as an example, who shares have been repeatedly hit despite their best efforts around good ecological and ethical business practises. Is this about short-termism versus long-termism in your mind? Or is it an issue around fiduciary duty and risk-return maximisation?

Assaad Razzouk:

Look, it’s a fantastic question because it’s about all of these. So what is, in the financial markets you’ve got people that are obsessed, and I mean obsessed with quarterly earnings. Now, if you’re obsessed with quarterly earnings, what happens is that you are by definition, willing to destroy the house if one quarter misses by more than what you can take. And that can be 5% right, or 10% as we see with stocks all day long.

So if you have a CEO that comes in that’s trying to transform a business, which just like a football club, is not going to happen overnight, and he misses on the earnings from the legacy business, he’s generally ousted, or at least there are efforts to oust these CEOs. And that’s where fiduciary duty comes in. If the fiduciary duty of the directors of the company included the environmental destruction by the very same company, then you would have a materially different result, including on quarterly earnings. So these are complex topics, but I mean you and I aren’t going to be able to solve them. It’s going to have to be the FCA and the SEC and governments and the courts through a reform of what fiduciary duty means, because it cannot just means maximising profits even if we all die. I mean, what’s the point of that?

Jason Mitchell:

No, it’s very true. Look, so it’s been fascinating to discuss what’s at stake in the fight for climate action. I had to think about the energy transition in the context of this year’s global electoral cycle, and of course, why we need more angry, clean energy people. So I’d really like to thank you for your time and insights. I’m Jason Mitchell, head of Responsible Investment Research at Man Group, here today with Assaad Razzouk, CEO of Gurīn Energy. Many thanks for joining us on a sustainable future, and I hope you’ll join us on our next podcast episode. Assaad, thank you so much for this. This is really enlightening.

Assaad Razzouk:

Many thanks, Jason, and much appreciated.

Jason Mitchell:

I’m Jason Mitchell, thanks for joining us. Special thanks to our guests and of course everyone that helped produce this show. To check out more episodes of this podcast, please visit us at man.com/ri-podcast.

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