How does a startup become the largest provider of electricity in the UK in less than a decade? What is locational pricing and how could it encourage more renewables? And is it possible to achieve a zero-carbon electricity system by 2030? 

Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Cleaning Up, in which Michael Liebreich sits down with Greg Jackson, the founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, to uncover the incredible story behind the company's rapid growth and its transformation into a global energy powerhouse. 

Greg and Michael explore how Octopus Energy has gone from a small startup to the largest energy supplier in the UK, directly serving over 7 million households, and with a presence in 8 of the top 10 competitive energy markets worldwide. Greg reveals the key drivers behind Octopus Energy's success, including the innovative Kraken platform that powers their operations, the strategic acquisitions that fuelled their expansion, and the company's unwavering focus on customer-centric solutions during the recent energy crisis. 

The story doesn't end there. Greg shares his ambitious vision for the future, whether or not its possible to reach 1 billion Kraken licenses by 2030 and the company's groundbreaking work in areas like locational pricing, electric vehicle integration, and the electrification of home heating. 

Leadership Circle

We are delighted to announce the Cleaning Up Leadership Circle, and our founding members: Actis, EcoPragma Capital, Eurelectric, the Gilardini Foundation, KKR, National Grid, Octopus Energy, Quadrature Climate Foundation and Wärtsilä. For more information on the Leadership Circle and how to become a member, please visit https://www.cleaningup.live

Links & More

• Episode 32: Building the Billion-Customer Energy Company — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9kHNMyH7bw
• Episode 154: Green Heat (and Cooling) Under our Feet — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TpHa-uU6lc
• Michael at the Imperial College Energy Futures Lab, and the subsequent panel discussion with Greg Jackson — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0Q9cuF8zKg
• Octopus Energy customers provide 108MW of grid flexibility in first ‘Saving Session’ — https://octopus.energy/press/believe-it-or-watt-octopus-energy-customers-provide-108mw-of-grid-flexibility-in-first-saving-session-equivalent-of-a-gas-power-station/

In the final episode of Season 12, hosts Michael Liebreich and Bryony Worthington reflect on the key conversations and developments in the net-zero transition over the past three months, including: 

• China's leadership in green finance and the role of air quality issues in driving climate action
• The rapid growth of the solar industry and its potential to meet global electricity demand
• The progress and challenges around electric vehicles, battery recycling, and the need for a holistic approach to energy storage
• The potential of thermal batteries for storing excess renewable energy
• The debates around engineering solutions like direct air capture and synthetic proteins
• The politics of climate change, the UK election results, the EU's hydrogen plans, and what might happen in the US
• The intersection of fashion, sustainability, and climate change 

We'll be back for Season 13 of Cleaning Up at the beginning of September. Thanks so much for listening, and see you then! In the meantime, please share this podcast with a friend, colleague, family, or whoever you think might enjoy it. 

Links and more: 

• Listen to and watch every episode of season 12: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8ZTD7dMaaAHKRt7GpWNkrhhrXv2-KoR 
• Jim Mellon of Agronomics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqFPic5iqds 
• Jonathan Maxwell of Sustainable Development Capital: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OTbyOxYUpg
• Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder and lead analyst at CREA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqjvCeR9VLg

As everyone knows, battery prices are plummeting and manufacturing volumes are soaring, whether for EVs or for grid-connected storage. And everyone knows there's a problem: only 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled. The rest go to landfill, right? Wrong. This week's guest on Cleaning Up is the world's preeminent expert on battery recycling. Hans Eric Melin is the Founder and Managing Director of Circular Energy Storage. 

Circular Energy Storage is a London-based data collection and analytics consultancy focused on the lithium-ion battery end-of-life market. They help companies and organisations in the entire battery value chain to take better decisions in everything that relates to reuse and recycling of lithium-ion batteries. They do this by continuously collecting, analysing and publishing data from all parts of the value chain worldwide and by working actively with customers in their strategy and business development. 

Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. 

Links and more: 

Circular Energy Storage: https://circularenergystorage.com/about 

Hans' LinkedIn post on the false narratives around lithium-ion battery recycling rates: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-rate-other-untruths-battery-recycling-hans-eric-melin-m5lde 

Hans' more extensive research report explaining the real rates: https://www.energimyndigheten.se/globalassets/forskning--innovation/overgripande/state-of-the-art-in-reuse-and-recycling-of-lithium-ion-batteries-2019.pdf 

The 2023 Battery Materials Review Yearbook, featuring a chapter authored by Hans: https://www.batterymaterialsreview.com/products/ 

The 2016 paper Hans mentioned, featuring the 95% landfill rate: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11837-016-1994-y

Claire Skinner is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles' London office and leader of the Europe region. She is a member of the firm’s CEO & Board, Industrial, and Private Equity practices.

Claire has more than 20 years of experience building executive and non-executive teams for a wide range of clients involved in energy, utilities, clean technology, and sustainability. Additionally, she has substantial expertise within energy and environmental investment, building teams on behalf of leading venture and private equity companies, infrastructure and asset managers, global financial institutions, and professional services groups.

Claire has significant experience in senior sustainability and climate change appointments within major corporations, government, philanthropy, and non-profit organizations. Prior to joining Heidrick & Struggles, Claire led the EMEA alternative energy & clean technology practice at a global executive search firm. Previously, she was the founding managing director of a boutique executive search firm dedicated to the power and sustainability markets.

Claire serves on the Business Advisory Group of the UK Government Climate Change Committee. She holds a BSc in Agricultural Environmental Science from Newcastle University and MSc in Pollution and Environmental Control from the University of Manchester.

This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a March 2022 blog post written by Michael for BloombergNEF.

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-quest-for-resilience-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/

We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it. 

Further reading:

“This Isn’t a Natural Disaster”: Climate Scientist Michael Mann on Deadly Tornadoes in 8 States (December 2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLKlvnc4dBM&t=648s

Empirical evidence of declining global vulnerability to climate-related hazards (July 2019)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378019300378

Climate rhetoric: What’s an energy trilemma? (December 2013)

https://www.carbonbrief.org/climate-rhetoric-whats-an-energy-trilemma

Climatological analysis of solar and wind energy in Germany using the Grosswetterlagen classification (February 2021)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148120316682

What happens during a blackout: Consequences of a prolonged and wide-ranging power outage (August 2011)

https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000103292

Voltage collapse in complex power grids (February 2016)

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10790

A Framework for Establishing Critical Infrastructure Resilience Goals (October 2010)

https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/niac/niac-a-framework-for-establishing-critical-infrastructure-resilience-goals-2010-10-19.pdf

A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use (March 2022)

https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-cut-oil-use

A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas (March 2022)

https://www.iea.org/reports/a-10-point-plan-to-reduce-the-european-unions-reliance-on-russian-natural-gas

Tom Steyer is Co-Executive Chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, a mission-driven investment platform.

Tom Steyer founded and ran Farallon Capital Management, a multi-strategy global investment business based in San Francisco, from 1986 until 2012. During that period, it grew assets from $6mm to $36bn. Over the same time, Tom was also a partner and Investment Committee member at Hellman & Friedman, a multi-billion dollar private equity firm.

After retiring from Farallon, Tom dedicated himself to public service and philanthropy, with a focus on climate action. Tom is the Co-Founder of Beneficial State Bank, a triple bottom line community development financial institution founded in 2007 with over $1 billion in assets. Tom is also the Founder of NextGen America, the largest youth voter mobilization organization in American history. Most recently, Tom was a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and beginning in April 2020 served as co-chair for Governor Newsom’s Business and Jobs Recovery Task Force. He also co-chaired Vice President Biden’s Climate Engagement Advisory Council to help mobilize climate voters.

Tom graduated from Yale and received his MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

Emma Pinchbeck has been the Chief Executive of Energy UK, the trade association for the energy industry since July 2020.

 Before taking up this post she was Deputy CEO of RenewableUK for 4 years and was the Head of Climate Change at WWF-UK.

 Emma holds an MA from the University of Oxford. She is a competitive rower and in 2018 ran her first marathon, raising money for WWF.

Rhian-Mari Thomas is Chief Executive of the Green Finance Institute. The Institute sits at the nexus of the public and private sectors, the Green Finance Institute convenes and leads sectoral coalitions of global experts, that identify and unlock barriers to investment towards impactful, real-economy outcomes. The Green Finance Institute is backed by the UK Government and City of London Corporation. 

Rhian spent 20 years in investment banking and corporate finance and was awarded an OBE for services to green banking. She is an Emeritus Member of TCFD and co-chaired the launch of the TNFD to which she is a senior advisor. 

Rhian sits on numerous advisory groups across UK Government including the Net Zero Expert Group, Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, Global Resources Initiative, Department for Transport Expert Panel, Her Majesty’s Treasury Green Technical Advisory Group and the UK Voluntary Carbon Markets Forum. Rhian was also a commissioner on the Zero Carbon Commission and a member of the Climate Change Committee’s Net Zero Finance Advisory Group. Rhian sits on the advisory board for UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources and co-chairs the advisory board for Snowball Impact Management.

A fluent Welsh speaker, Rhian holds a PhD in Physics from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Further reading:

Green Finance Institute

https://www.greenfinanceinstitute.co.uk/

Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE is Director of Cambridge Zero, the University of Cambridge's major climate change initiative.  

Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, an Associate Fellow of the Centre for Science and Policy and a Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey. She leads the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training on the Application of AI to the study of Environmental Risks.  

A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate.  

In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science. She is co-author with HRH The Prince of Wales and Tony Juniper of the Ladybird Book on Climate Change.

Further reading:

Official bio

https://www.cst.cam.ac.uk/people/efs20

Cambridge Zero

https://www.zero.cam.ac.uk/  

Cambridge Zero Policy Forum  

https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/Research-Policy-Engagement/cambridge-zero/

AI4ER

https://ai4er-cdt.esc.cam.ac.uk/  

Centre for Landscape Regeneration

https://www.clr.conservation.cam.ac.uk/

Inger Andersen is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme.

From 2015 until 2019, Inger was the Director-General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).  Before that she worked at the World Bank for 15 years in roles such as Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa; Vice President for Sustainable Development and Head of the CGIAR Fund Council.  

Prior to joining the World Bank, Inger worked at the UN, focusing mostly on drought and desertification issues.  

Her career began in Sudan, where she worked as an English teacher and moved to development sector in 1985 to work at the Sudan Aid.  

Inger holds a BA from the London Metropolitan University North and a MA in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Tommaso Demarie (PhD) is co-founder and CEO of Entropica Labs, a company working on optimisation with and for quantum computing.  

Tommaso has 12 years of experience in the field of quantum information and computation. Before founding Entropica, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and Singapore University of Technology and Design.  

His research interests included (and include, when he finds the time to publish research articles) applications of quantum-based protocols, verification of quantum computation, and novel cryptographic schemes for quantum computing.  

Tommaso holds an Undergraduate Degree in Physics and a Masters in Environmental Physics from the University of Torino (Turin, Italy) and a PhD in Physics from Macquarie University, Sydney.

Further reading:

Entropica’s website

https://www.entropicalabs.com/

Tommaso's Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_MoOYCsAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Tommaso's LinkedIn profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommasodemarie/

Q4Climate

https://q4climate.github.io/#:~:text=Q4Climate%20is%20an%20initiative%20that,and%20impact%20of%20climate%20change.&text=Find%20practical%20solutions%20using%20the%20highest%20possible%20scientific%20rigor.

David Turk serves as Deputy Secretary in the US Department of Energy.

Before joining President Biden’s administration in 2021, David spent over 4 years as Deputy Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA). He was Head of Strategic Initiatives Office and Head of Energy Environment Division.

During the Obama administration David worked at the Department of Energy (Deputy Assistant Secretary), the Department of State (Deputy Special Envoy) and at the National Security Council as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director. Between 2001 and 2007 David was a counsel in the US Senate, working for Senators Joe Biden and Kent Conrad.  

David holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and JD from the University of Virginia Law School

Last week the leading lights of Europe's electricity industry gathered for the annual Eurelectric Power Summit at the Lagonissi Beach Resort just outside Athens. The conference - under the hashtag this year of #lights on - lasted two days and covered the key issues facing Europe's and the world's power sectors. Two topics in particular stood out: the need to accelerate the build out of transmission, and the pressures and opportunities offered by digitization and AI. At the event, Eurelectric published a brace of reports on these two topics. On the final day of the conference, Michael caught up with Leonhard Birnbaum, Chairman and CEO of German utility and distribution grid operator E.ON and President of Eurelectric, on a sunny and windy terrace just outside the conference centre to discuss all this and more.

Leonhard began his professional career at McKinsey in Düsseldorf. After holding various positions, he was Senior Partner for the energy and industrial sector. In 2008, he joined RWE AG and was appointed to the Board of Management the same year. He served as Chief Strategy Officer and as RWE Group’s Chief Commercial Officer until 2013, when he was appointed as member of the Board of Management of E.ON SE and took on a variety of responsibilities within the Board. From 2018 until 2021 he was responsible for the innogy integration project, and from 2019 to 2020, he was also Chairman of the Board of Management of innogy SE. In 2021, he was appointed to his current role as CEO of E.ON SE, in which he is responsible for Communications & Political Affairs, Corporate Audit, Strategy, Group and Executive HR, HSE & Sustainability, Legal & Compliance and Nuclear Coordination. He is also Vice-President of the Executive Committee of BDEW, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries, a member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) and President of Eurelectric, the European Electricity Association, and Vice Chair of the World Energy Council.

Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. 

Links and more:

Eurelectric: https://www.eurelectric.org/

E.ON: https://www.eon.com/en.html

Eurelectric Power Summit 2024 - LightsOn: https://powersummit2024.eurelectric.org/

Eurelectric's new report - Grids for Speed: https://powersummit2024.eurelectric.org/grids-for-speed/

Eurelectric's new report - Wired for Tomorrow: https://powersummit2024.eurelectric.org/wired-for-tomorrow/El

Electrify Almost Everything for Net-Zero - Ep34: Kristian Ruby: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-34-kristian-ruby/

Francesco Starace is Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Enel.

Before becoming the CEO in 2014, Francesco spent 14 years at Enel, holding a number of executive positions - between 2008 and 2014 he led Enel’s renewable power generation business, Enel Green. Prior to this role which included overseeing the businesses’ IPO. Before 2008 Francesco was, inter alia,  Head of Business Power and Managing Director of the Market Division.  

Before joining Enel, Francesco worked at General Electric, ABB and Alstom. His work has taken him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and the United States

Francesco served as a member of the Advisory Board of the United Nations’ Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) between 2014 and 2017 and has been Chair of SEforALL’s Administrative Board since October 2020. Francesco also served on the Board of Directors of the United Nations’ Global Compact from 2015 until 2021. Between 2016 and 2018, he was co-chair of the World Economic Forum's Energy Utilities and Energy Technologies Community. Francesco served as President of Eurelectric between 2017 and 2019. Since January 2020 he has been co-chair of the WEF “Net Zero Carbon Cities – Systemic Efficiency Initiative” and since January 2021 he has been co-chair of the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance’s round table on "Renewable and Low-carbon Hydrogen Production.”

Even though Francesco has a degree in nuclear engineering from Polytechnic University of Milan, he is a fan of A.S. Roma. His other passions include cycling and poetry.

Lieutenant General (Retd) Richard Nugee is the lead author of the UK Ministry of Defence’s Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach report.

Richard spent over 35 years in the military. He was first commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1985. During his service he reached the rank of Lieutenant General and was the Chief of the Defence People between 2016 and 2020.

He led the works on UK MoD’s Climate Change and Sustainability Review between 2020 and 2021 and retired from the army in May 2021.

Richard was appointed MBE in June 1998, CBE in January 2012, CVO in September 2016, and CB in January 2020, he was awarded the US Legion of Merit for his services in Afghanistan in 2014. He holds BA degree from Durham University and MA from King’s College London.

Further reading:  

Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (March 2021)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ministry-of-defence-climate-change-and-sustainability-strategic-approach/ministry-of-defence-climate-change-and-sustainability-strategic-approach-accessible-version

Nathan Gambling is a heating engineer and lecturer who has taught in colleges and a prison. As well as industry, teaching and assessing qualifications he has a psychology degree in Behavioural studies and is regarded as a leading expert around training and the learning process within plumbing and heating.  

He has a remarkable heritage within the heating industry: As central heating first started to take hold it was his grandfather who brought Swedish oil burner technology to the UK and was the UK’s leading oil combustion expert venerated throughout Europe. His great uncle was lead engineer and European Energy manager for Unilever and his dad was a technical rep for Trianco Redfyre who back in the 80s was the UK’s leading boiler manufacture.

He sometimes works with his cousin who is the UK’s leading acoustic sensitive heating and ventilation engineer installing and maintaining the comfort cooling and heating systems in some of the world’s best recording and post production facilities here in the UK.  

Nathan often jokes that some of the radio/tv stations who’ve had guests on dismissing heat pumps are actually sitting in facilities heated and cooled with heat pump technology his cousin’s engineers installed, and that if heat pumps were that noisy you’d hear them on some of the world’s most famous record albums."

He currently hosts the award winning low carbon and renewable heating podcast BetaTalk and provides consultancy. He is regarded as knowing who the best engineers in the UK are and has helped senior figures in the energy discourse find competent engineers for their own homes. He is also able to help local authorities receiving money from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund understand who the competent suppliers are on their Dynamic Purchasing Systems

Further reading:

Depher

https://www.depher.co.uk/

Miriam Violet Griffith

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1480645001155858433

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Miriam_Violet_Griffith

BetaTeach

https://www.betateach.co.uk/

Pasquale Romano is President and Chief Executive Officer of ChargePoint and a member of the company’s board of directors.

Pasquale joined ChargePoint in February of 2011, bringing more than 30 years of technology industry leadership and executive management experience to the company. He is currently a board member for Levitate Acquisition Corporation.

He co-founded 2Wire which was acquired by Pace plc for $475M in 2010. Previously, Pasquale held multiple positions in marketing and engineering at Polycom. In 1989, he co-founded Fluent, Inc., a digital video networking company and served as Chief Architect until it was sold to Novell Corporation in 1993.  

Pasquale holds an undergraduate degree in computer science from Harvard University and received his M.S. from MIT.

Ban Ki-moon was the 8th Secretary General of the UN. He is the Chairman of Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future.

In April 2019, Mr. Ban was elected as the Chairman of Presidential National Council on Climate and Air Quality (NCCA) (2019-2021). In April 2018, Mr. Ban was elected as the Chairman of Boao Forum for Asia. In January 2018, Mr. Ban, along with former President of Austria Mr. Heinz Fischer, were inducted as Co-Chairs of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens in Vienna, Austria. Mr. Ban Ki-moon was also elected as Chairman of IOC Ethics Committee in September 2017. Currently, he is the Distinguished Chair Professor and Honorary Chairman at the Institute of Global Engagement & Empowerment at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea. In February 2018, he was elected and has been serving as the President of the Assembly & Chair of the Council of Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). 

Prior to these appointments, Mr. Ban served two consecutive terms as the Secretary General of the United Nations (2007-2016).

Throughout his tenure at the UN, Mr. Ban strove to be a bridge builder, to give voice to the world’s poorest and the most vulnerable people, and to make the Organization more transparent and effective. He successfully pressed for action to combat climate change - an effort that culminated in the adoption and rapid entry into the landmark Paris Agreement in 2016. Mr. Ban worked closely with member states of the UN to shape the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to establish UN Women, which has been advancing the Organization’s work for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Mr. Ban also launched major efforts to strengthen UN peace operations, to protect human rights, to improve humanitarian response, and to prevent violent extremism and to revitalize the disarmament agenda.

At the time of his appointment at the UN, Mr. Ban was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea. His 37 years with the Ministry included postings in New Delhi, Washington D.C., and Vienna, and responsibilities for a variety of portfolios, including Foreign Policy Adviser to the President, Chief National Security Adviser to the President, Vice Minister, Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and Director-General for American Affairs. Mr. Ban has also been actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relations by serving as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

Mr. Ban received a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Seoul National University in 1970. He earned a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985.

Further reading:

Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens

https://bankimooncentre.org/

The Elders mourn the loss of Archbishop Desmond Tutu (December 2021)

https://theelders.org/news/elders-mourn-loss-archbishop-desmond-tutu

Peter Sweatman is the founder and Chief Executive of Climate Strategy & Partners (@ClimateSt and www.climatestrategy.com), a strategic consulting group in Clean Energy, Clean Technology Innovation and Energy Efficiency working with leading companies and policymakers in the global energy transition

Peter is also Chairman and founder of Energy Efficiency Capital Advisors (www.eecapadvisors.com) an expert solution provider and finance structuring partner for over Euro 60 million of finance for energy savings and on-site power in Spanish cities.

Peter Sweatman has spent 30 years in finance of which 18 are climate finance and energy efficiency. He has published fifteen white papers and chaired, moderated or spoken at 380 conferences and workshops on the global energy transition to a climate neutral economy. Peter is the rapporteur for EU Commission and UNEP FI’s 500-strong Energy Efficiency Financial Institutions Group (#EEFIG) since 2013 and for five years was the G20’s EEFTG technical lead. He is the co-chair of Breakthrough Energy’s European Climate Innovation Hub, a founder advisor to the Climate Bond Initiative, a founder member of the Ashoka Support Network in Spain, advisor to the Climate Lab, advisor to Braemar Energy Ventures, on the steering committees of EY and CapGemini Invent’s work on green recovery and climate innovation, a board member of Menorca Preservation Fund and visiting lecturer at IIT-Comillas university. Peter chaired and reported on a 250-expert process to help design the EU ETS Innovation fund and published a review of EU finance for competitive innovation for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Peter holds an MA Cantab degree in Engineering and Management Studies from Cambridge University. In 1991, he joined JPMorgan in Corporate Finance where he spent 9 years responsible for client business, mainly in debt capital markets, for Spain, Portugal, Austria and Switzerland based in London and then for Mexico and other Latin American countries from New York. In the year 2000, Peter became a social entrepreneur to found three successful and high impact NGOs: Charity Digital (www.charitydigital.org.uk), New Philanthropy Capital (www.thinknpc.org) and Catalyst Climate Change Trust. From 2005, Peter was a Managing Director in Bunge-Climate Change Capital that was – from 2004-2010 - one of the world’s leading specialist fund managers and advisors in the low carbon economy.

Amory Lovins is Cofounder and Chairman Emeritus of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Apart from co-founding the Institute in 1982 he served as its Chief Scientist between 2007 and 2019. 

Amory is a an author of 31 books and more than 700 papers, he has advised major firms and governments on energy in over 70 countries for more than 45 years.

He has taught at ten universities, most recently the Naval Postgraduate School (Professor of Practice 2011–17) and Stanford University, where he’s currently Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Scholar of the Precourt Institute for Energy—but only teaching topics he’s never formally studied, so as to retain beginner’s mind. He served in 2011–18 on the National Petroleum Council and has advised the US Departments of Energy and Defense.

He has received the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Happold, Benjamin Franklin, and Spencer Hutchens Medals, 12 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood (“alternative Nobel”), National Design, and World Technology Awards. In 2016, the President of Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse).

Further reading:

IEA Energy Efficiency 2021 report:

https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-efficiency-2021

Official bio:

https://rmi.org/people/amory-lovins/

How Big Is the Energy Efficiency Resource?    (a half-hour summary talk is at https://energy.stanford.edu/events/special-energy-seminar-amory-lovins-holmes-hummel)

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad965

Recalibrating Climate Prospects

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab55ab

Can a Virus and Viral Ideas Speed the World’s Journey Beyond Fossil Fuels? (with Kingsmill Bond)

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc3f2

SAE: Reframing Automotive Fuel Efficiency

https://doi.org/10.4271/13-01-01-0004

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL),  where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP).

She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy's highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She was named as one of the '3 most important thinkers about innovation' by The New Republic, one of the 50 most creative people in business in 2020 by Fast Company, and one of the 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism by WIRED.  

She is the author of three highly-acclaimed books: The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (2013), The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (2018) and the newly released, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (2021).  

She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her current roles include being Chair of the World Health Organization’s Economic Council on Health for All and a member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council, the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors, and the United Nations High-level Advisory Board (HLAB) on Economic and Social Affairs, among others. 

David Sandalow is the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy and co-Director of the Energy and Environment Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He founded and directs the Center’s U.S.-China Program.

David is as a director at Fermata Energy and senior advisor to APL. He is a member of the Zayed Future Energy Prize Selection Committee, Global CO2 Initiative Advisory Board, Electric Drive Transport Association’s “Hall of Fame” and Council on Foreign Relations.

David held senior positions at the White House, State Department and U.S. Department of Energy. At DOE he served as Under Secretary of Energy (acting) and Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs. Before joining DOE, David was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Executive Vice President at WWF.

David holds a B.A. from Yale University and J.D. from University of Michigan Law School.

Official bio:

https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/david-sandalow

Guide to Chinese Climate Policy (2019)

https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Chinese-Climate-Policy-Sandalow/dp/1691490245/ref=sr\_1\_3?

keywords=guide%20to%20chinese%20climate%20policy&qid=1568665817&sr=8-3

Carbon Mineralization Roadmap (November 2021)

https://www.icef.go.jp/pdf/summary/roadmap/icef2021\_roadmap.pdf

Dan Doctoroff is the Founder and CEO of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company that works with cities to address key urban problems.

Before founding Sidewalk Labs in 2015, Dan spent 6 years working  at Bloomberg L.P. first as President and since 2011 as CEO. He joined that company after leading the post 9/11 recovery of the New York city for 7 years as its Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding.

Prior to working in the Mayor Bloomberg administration, Dan was Managing Partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners and worked as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers.

Dan is a board member of the University of Chicago, World Resource Institute and Human Rights First. He founded Target ALS, an initiative aimed at finding new approaches to treating the illness.

Dan holds a B.A. in government from Harvard College and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

China's policies that direct capital towards cleaner industries have been game changing, and this week we're continuing the China theme, sharing two conversations Bryony had earlier this month at a conference at Xiamen University in Fujian Province. China's role in the clean energy transition could not be more important. The think tank Ember's latest report on the state of the global electricity transition states: over half of the world's new wind and solar power capacity last year was added in China, and together with hydro and nuclear, clean electricity in China now meets 35% of their electricity demand. And yet, the scale and the nature of the Chinese economy is so enormous it's hard to grasp, the majority of which is still powered by roughly 1000 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations, half of the global total. The focus of the conference was on a specific lever that could help China further along its decarbonisation path: the repowering of existing coal stations with clean sources of heat. 

Bryony's first guest, Staffan Qvist is a published academic, co-author of the book A Bright Future, and founder of a number of companies dedicated to the clean energy transition. He's been studying this concept of coal repowering since he first co-authored papers on the subject with Polish colleagues in 2019. Bryony's second guest is Assistant Professor Yaoli Zhang of Xiamen University, a thermal generation engineer by training who later "repowered" himself and switched to nuclear engineering. He currently oversees a team researching the repairing of coal in China from both a practical and economic perspective. 

Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. 

Links and more: 

How China Became a Green Finance Superpower - Ep160: Dr. Ma Jun: https://www.cleaningup.live/how-china-became-a-green-finance-superpower-ep160-dr-ma-jun/ 

The 2019 book Staffan co-authored - A Bright Future: https://brightfuturebook.com 

The March 2024 US Department of Energy guide on converting coal-fired power plants to nuclear power: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/8-things-know-about-converting-coal-plants-nuclear-power 

...and the associated press release: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/doe-study-finds-replacing-coal-plants-nuclear-plants-could-bring-hundreds-more-local 

The 2022 Paper Dr Zhang and Staffan co-authored on the potential of repowering China's CFPPs with nuclear: https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v15y2022i3p1072-d739738.html 

A recent IAEA article on repurposing CFPPs to nuclear: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/repurposing-coal-power-plant-sites-with-low-carbon-nuclear

Guy Turner is the founder and CEO of Trove Research and an expert on carbon markets.

Guy has 30 years’ experience in research and strategy in sustainability and the energy transition. He spent his first 15 years in consulting advising companies and governments on a wide range of sustainability issues. In 2006 he joined New Energy Finance (NEF) to create the carbon market research business (New Carbon Finance) which was integrated into NEF. After the sale to Bloomberg, Guy continued as Head of Commodities and Chief Economist of BNEF, building out power and gas market analysis and renewables economics.

In 2017 Guy joined BP Economics where he was responsible for global oil supply analysis and worked on BP’s Energy Outlook. From 2018 to 2020 Guy was the Strategy and Analysis Manager at EDF Renewables, overseeing market and financial analysis to support investments in offshore and onshore wind, solar, battery storage and hydrogen.

Guy has undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Economics, a Masters in Environmental Technology and is a graduate of London Business School Corporate Finance Evening Programme.

Further reading:

Trove Intelligence

https://trove-intelligence.com/

Trove Research

https://trove-research.com/

Glen Peters is Research Director at Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Oslo. Previously he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Industrial Ecology Programme at NTNU.

Dr Peters is a worldwide authority on socio-economic drivers of emissions. He has performed pioneering work on how international trade intricately connects emission drivers in different countries. Recent work has focused on trends in carbon emissions, socio-economic drivers, and future emission pathways at the global and country level (particularly China and India). Other key research areas include emission metrics and the carbon cycle. Dr Peters is on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project.

While at the University of Newcastle (Australia) he received a University Medal and Deans Medal for undergraduate performance (Mathematics/Physics) and the DH Trollope Medal for his PhD (Environmental Engineering). He has twice received the Environmental Science & Technology Best Policy Paper Award (2007, 2009).

Further reading:

Glen’s Google Scholar profile

https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=EW93x94AAAAJ

Global Mitigation Curves

https://folk.universitetetioslo.no/roberan/t/global\_mitigation\_curves.shtml

Damilola Ogunbiyi is the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy

Mrs. Ogunbiyi has extensive experience in the energy space. Before joining SEforAll she was Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency, the first woman to be appointed to the post. Before that she was Senior Special Assistant to the Nigerian President on Power and a senior official in the Lagos State Government. Mrs. Ogunbiyi worked for the British Government as a Consultant in the Department for International Development and at the HM Treasury.

Mrs. Ogunbiyi maintains a keen interest in mentoring and empowering young people through skills acquisitions. She created the Lagos State Energy Academy to build the capacity of young people in renewable energy technology, and the Energizing Education Programme (EEP) which launched a Female STEM Student Internship Programme to provide hands-on practical experience in designing and constructing power systems for 700 female undergraduates.

Mrs. Ogunbiyi is one of the Commissioners for the Global Commission to end energy poverty which is an initiative driven by MIT and The Rockefeller Foundation. She is the Co-Chair of the COP26 Energy Transition Council. She is also a member of the Development Advisory Council of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), member of the clean cooking alliance advisory board and a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Oxford – Future of Cooling Programme

Mrs. Ogunbiyi holds a bachelor’s degree in Project Management with Construction and a master’s degree in Construction Management with Public Private Partnership from University of Brighton.

Further reading:

Official bio:

https://www.seforall.org/who-we-are/damilola-ogunbiyi

UN’s Ogunbiyi on Sustainability Goals, COP26 (July 2021)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-07-02/un-s-ogunbiyi-on-sustainability-goals-cop26-video

Damilola Ogunbiyi on how to bridge the energy gap in Africa (July 2020)

https://www.cnbcafrica.com/2020/damilola-ogunbiyi-on-how-to-bridge-the-energy-gap-in-africa/

OECD Climate Finance Provided and Mobilised by Developed Countries: Aggregate Trends Updated with 2019 Data

https://www.oecd.org/env/climate-finance-provided-and-mobilised-by-developed-countries-aggregate-trends-updated-with-2019-data-03590fb7-en.htm

Professor Dame Julia King (Baroness Brown of Cambridge) DBE, FRS, FREng is an engineer, crossbench member of the House of Lords and Chair of The Carbon Trust.

Julia started her career in academia as a Rolls-Royce fellow at University of Cambridge and was involved in teaching and research for 16 years, before moving to business. Between 1994 and 2002  she held a number of managerial positions at Rolls-Royce. In 2002 she became the Chief  Executive of the Institute of Physics. Between 2004 and 2006 Julia was the Principal of the Engineering Faculty at Imperial College London. After that, she was Vice-Chancellor of Aston University for a decade.  

Julia has worked closely with the government on a number of climate, technology and education issues. She led the King Review of low-carbon cars (published in 2008) and sat on numerous government bodies, such as Climate Change Committee's Adaptation Sub-Committee of which she is the chair.  

Julia was appointed a life peer in the House of Lords in 2015. In 1999 she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire and promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012.

Todd Stern is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, best known for leading the US delegation at COP21 in his capacity as Special Envoy for Climate Change at the Department of State.

Todd’s political career started in 1993, when he joined President Clinton’s administration. Between 1997 and 1999, he led the US government efforts on global climate change – he was the senior White House negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. Between 1999 and 2001 he was a Counsellor to the Secretary of the Treasury.

After 7 years in the private sector, Todd returned to politics, joining President Obama’s administration as the Special Envoy for Climate Change, U.S. Department of State in 2009. As the chief climate negotiator he led the US delegation at COP21 and was one of the key architects of the Paris Agreement.

Todd is now a Senior Fellow at Cross-Brookings Initiative on Climate and Energy.  He graduated from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. Todd is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Further reading:

Official Bio

https://www.brookings.edu/experts/todd-stern/

Can the United States and China reboot their climate cooperation? (September 2020)

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-the-united-states-and-china-reboot-their-climate-cooperation/

Podesta email dump reveals tight US-China climate ties (October 2016)

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/10/19/podesta-email-dump-reveals-tight-us-china-climate-ties/

Alain Ebobissé is a specialist in the financing and development of infrastructure and CEO  of Africa50. Prior to joining the organization, Mr. Ebobissé served as the Global Head of the World Bank Group’s Global Infrastructure Project Development Fund (IFC InfraVentures), where he oversaw a team of infrastructure specialists and led the development of and investment in numerous infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Mr. Ebobissé led the design, structuring, and implementation of IFC InfraVentures from its inception. He also served as Chief Investment Officer in the Global Infrastructure and Natural Resources Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private-sector arm of the World Bank Group, based in Washington.

Prior to joining the IFC in 1998, he held several positions in the financial services industry in France, including Deputy Head of Project and Structured Finance at Caisse des Depots et Consignations. Ebobissé holds a Master of Business Administration from the International School for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Further reading:

Africa50

https://www.africa50.com/

John Redfern is an investor, advisor and serial entrepreneur in the data analytics, oil service and energy tech verticals. John spent his career in executive roles at multiple international oil and oil service companiess including as a Director at Hess in London, President of Accumap in Calgary and President of IHS Energy in Denver.  

Prior to Eavor, John spent 13 years in China co-founding a series of start-ups, the most recent of which is LocalGravity, the leading retail data analytics platform in China. As a director, executive and advisor over the years, John has specialized in commercial strategy, negotiations, alliancing, M&A, and private equity.  

John holds a degree in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Law degrees from McGill University in Montreal, and an MBA degree from INSEAD in France.

Julie Klinger is an Assistant Professor of Geographer at the University of Delaware and also affiliated with the university's new Minerals, Materials and Society Program. She is the author of "Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes”, Cornell University Press.

Julie Klinger was formerly Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

Julie lists her research interests as “the dynamics of global resource frontiers and space-based technologies with particular emphases in China, Brazil, and the United States; how diverse forms of violence and strategies for survival shape land use, environmental conservation, and livelihood security; rare earth elements; natural resource use; environmental politics; and outer space.

Further reading:

Official bio:

https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/ceoe/departments/gss/faculty/julie-klinger/

Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes (2017)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1w0dd6d

U.S. Geological Survey

https://www.usgs.gov/

William Russel was elected as Alderman for the Ward of Bread Street in 2013 and served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2016-17. He has been the Lord Mayor of the City of London since 2019.

Before leaving for public service, William Russell spent over 30 years working in the financial sector. In 1987 he went to work for First Boston Corporation before joining Merrill Lynch in 1992 as an investment banker in Institutional Equity Sales, working in Asia, New York and London. 

William is currently Chair of CDAM, a London based Asset Management business, and Senior Advisor to STJ Advisors. He was also on the Board of Innovate Finance, the industry body for the UK based FinTech community.

He has a number of charitable interests. He has served as Chair of the Development Board of the Royal Court Theatre, he is a Board Member of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Barbican Centre and is on the Council of the Royal Theatrical Support Trust. He is immediate past Chair of Prostate Cancer UK and is currently Deputy Chair of Place2Be, a children’s mental health charity. He is a Trustee of Morden College and a past member of the Development Board of the Charterhouse.

William is the fifth member of his family to be Lord Mayor in the past 110 years.

Further reading:

Official Bio

https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/about-the-city-of-london-corporation/lord-mayor/lord-mayor-biography

London is a leader in green finance but we must strive for more (February 2021)

https://www.cityam.com/londin-is-a-leader-inn-green-finance-but-we-must-strive-for-more/

Board of Trade report: green trade (July 2021)

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/board-of-trade-report-green-trade

Elizabeth Wathuti is a Kenyan environment and climate activist and founder of the Green Generation Initiative, which nurtures young people to be environmentally conscious and has planted 30,000 tree seedlings in Kenya. She grew up in Nyeri County, which has the highest forest cover in Kenya, planting her first tree at the age of seven and establishing an environmental club in her high school. She was part of the leadership of Kenyatta University Environmental Club (KUNEC) where she led tree plantings, clean ups and environmental education and education on climate change. She is a recipient of a Wangari Maathai Scholarship award for her outstanding passion and commitment to environmental conservation. She is also a full member of the Green Belt Movement, which was founded by the late Professor Wangari Maathai who is Wathuti’s role model and a big inspiration and influence. In 2019, Wathuti was awarded the Africa Green Person of the Year Award by the Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation, and named as one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans by the Africa Youth Awards. She has also been featured on the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust website.

The 5th Hydrogen Energy Ministerial in Tokyo announced that by 2030, the world would produce and use 90 million tonnes of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen. Then, last year, the 6th Hydrogen Energy Ministerial not only reiterated the 90 million tonne target, but went further, promising that the overall market for hydrogen would grow to 150 million tonnes by 2030. All very exciting, and it helped to ensure that hydrogen was one of the hot topics at COP 28 in Dubai a few months later. But these targets are unachievable. The issue is simple: it's money. The biggest challenge facing low emission hydrogen is that it is expensive to produce, expensive to transport, expensive to store, expensive to distribute, and expensive to use. Whether you're switching existing users to clean hydrogen or pushing hydrogen into sectors where it's not currently used, it takes money - and lots of it. 

In this week's episode of Cleaning Up, we find how much and how much more governments would have to spend for hydrogen to live up to its hype. This audio blog is adapted from a piece Michael wrote at the end of last year for BloombergNEF, entitled "Clean Hydrogen's Missing Trillions", which estimated that hitting the Hydrogen Energy Ministerial target of 90 million tonnes of clean energy by 2030 would require subsidies of at least $2.3 trillion to be on the table right now, while the actual figure at the end of last year was 1/10th of that. Although the figures have changed a bit since then, the message remains the same: the subsidy gap remains in the multiple trillions of dollars. It should not therefore be surprising that the news is full of projects being cancelled and delayed. In fact, that will be one of the main hydrogen stories through to 2030 and beyond.

Please like, subscribe and leave a review. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, and sign up for the Cleaning Up newsletter at https://cleaninguppod.substack.com. Find our archive of over 160 hours of conversations with extraordinary climate leaders at https://cleaningup.live.

Links

Michael's December 2023 BloombergNEF piece - "Clean Hydrogen's Missing Trillions", on which this audio blog is based: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-clean-hydrogens-missing-trillions/

Michael's September 2023 BloombergNEF Piece - "The Five Horsemen of the Transition": https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-i-harder/

Michael's December 2022 BloombergNEF piece - "The Unbearable Lightness of Hydrogen": https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-the-unbearable-lightness-of-hydrogen/

The Chair's Summary of the 6th Hydrogen Energy Ministerial: https://hem-2023.nedo.go.jp/wp-content/themes/suiso2023--THEME/files/charis-summary-en.pdf

The US National Petroleum Council Report - "Harnessing Hydrogen": https://harnessinghydrogen.npc.org

The PwC Report - "Navigating the Global Hydrogen Ecosystem": https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/de/en/industries/energy-utilities/navigating-the-hydrogen-ecosystem.html

The IEA's 2023 Net Zero Roadmap: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/13dab083-08c3-4dfd-a887-42a3ebe533bc/NetZeroRoadmap_AGlobalPathwaytoKeepthe1.5CGoalinReach-2023Update.pdf

The IEA's Global Hydrogen Review: https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/8d434960-a85c-4c02-ad96-77794aaa175d/GlobalHydrogenReview2023.pdf

Related Episodes

Audioblog 11 - The Five Horsemen of the Transition: https://www.cleaningup.live/audioblog-11-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-i-harder-1/

Audioblog 8- The Unbearable Lightness of Hydrogen: https://www.cleaningup.live/cleaning-up-audioblog-episode-8-the-unbearable-lightness-of-hydrogen/

Laurence Tubiana is CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF). In addition, she is the Chair of the Board of Governors at the French Development Agency (AFD), the Chair of the Board at Expertise France (The French public agency for international technical assistance) and a Professor at Sciences Po, Paris.  

Before joining ECF, Laurence was France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and as such a key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. Following COP21 and through COP22, she was appointed UN High Level Champion for climate action, after a long career in public service - from 1997 to 2002, she served as Senior Adviser on the Environment to the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. From 2009 to 2010, she created and then led the newly established Directorate for Global Public Goods at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE). In 2013, she chaired the French National Debate on the Energy Transition.  

In 2002 she founded Institute of Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI).  and led it until 2014 . Throughout the years, Laurence has held several academic positions, including as a Professor and Scientific Director for the International Development and Environmental Studies Master degrees at Sciences Po, Paris; and Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University, New York. She has been a member of numerous boards and scientific committees, including the Chinese Committee on the Environment and International Development (CCICED).

Laurence Tubiana is an officer of the Legion of Honour, the highest French order of merit and recently was awarded the title of Doctorat Honoris Causa at the Université Catholique de Louvain.

Further reading:

Official Bio

https://europeanclimate.org/member/tubiana/

Paris climate agreement: Five years on are there reasons for optimism? (December 2020)

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/the-interview/20201209-paris-climate-agreement-five-years-on-reasons-for-optimism

Eamon Ryan is the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Minister for Transport in the Irish government and leader of the Green Party.

Eamon’s political career began in 1998 when he was co-opted to Dublin City Council. In 2002 he was elected to the Dáil Éireann. In 2007, when the Green party entered the government, he became the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. His time in office saw doubling of the renewable share in the electricity mix and a wide-ranging house retrofit programme. He resigned in 2011 after the Green Party left the government. After the Green Party failed to win any seats in the 2011 general election, Eamon became the party leader and has led it ever since. Eamon was elected TD for Dublin Bay South in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.

Eamon graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce.

Further reading:

Official bio:

https://www.eamonryan.ie/home

EU’s carbon targets challenging but doable for Ireland, says Ryan (July 2021)

irishtimes.com/news/politics/eu-s-carbon-targets-challenging-but-doable-for-ireland-says-ryan-1.4620617

Statement from Minister Ryan at Leader's Climate Summit (April 2021)

https://www.eamonryan.ie/news/2021/6/3/statement-from-minister-ryan-at-leaders-climate-summit

Tony Abbott was the Australian PM between 2013 and 2015, the leader of the Liberal Party between 2009 and 2015 and an MP for Warringah between 1994 and 2019. He currently serves as an advisor to the UK Board of Trade alongside Michael.

During his time in office he repealed Australia’s carbon tax and finalized trade deals with China, Japan and Korea. Tony Abbott was also Health Minister between 2003 and 2007.

Prior to entering parliament, he was a journalist with The Australian, a senior adviser to opposition leader John Hewson, and director of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. He has degrees in economics and law from Sydney University and in politics and philosophy from Oxford which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar.

Further reading:

Official bio:

http://tonyabbott.com.au/biography/

Board of Trade report: green trade

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/board-of-trade-report-green-trade

This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a October 2020 blog written by Michael for BloombergNEF

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-two-the-demand-side/

We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it.

This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a October 2020 blog written by Michael for BloombergNEF

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-one-the-supply-side/

We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it.

This episode of Cleaning Up is based on a June 2021 blog written by Michael for BloombergNEF https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-climate-action-its-the-trade-stupid/ We would like to thank BloombergNEF for allowing us to record it.

Dr. Yousef Alshammari, is the CEO and Head of Oil Research at CMarkits, London UK. He is a former Research Fellow in energy economics at the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). He has been hosted for more than 200 TV shows with Al-Arabiya, CNBC Arabia, Sky News Arabia, Asharq Bloomberg, and CGTN. He is a writer at Forbes Middle East, CGTN and Oilprice.com, and his articles have been featured by multiple business news websites including MarketWatch, NASDAQ, and Business Insider.  

He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London where he  worked on designing innovative processes for clean hydrogen generation from heavy oil fields. Following that, he pursued his postdoctoral research in energy economics at the IAEA, KAUST, and the University of Vienna. He was awarded a research fellowship from King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS) chaired HRH Prince Turki Alfaisal, and SABIC. He has also been a peer-reviewer for research papers at Energy Policy and the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, and he published a wide range of research papers in the field of energy technology and energy economics. Yousef is an assistant professor of energy economics at Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University in Saudi Arabia, and he taught more than 800 Saudi students including some of the first female engineering students in the country.

He has been a recipient of many international prizes including the World Energy Congress Prize (2016) for TOP20 research papers for his work on the impact of low oil prices on carbon capture and storage, and the UK Alumni Award for Professional Achievements (2017). In 2017, he was honoured as a Young Global Changer by the G20 Global Solution Summit in Berlin, Germany, and in 2018, he was honoured for his long-term leadership services as a board member of Future Energy Leaders by the World Energy Council.

Further reading:

LinkedIn profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-yousef-alshammari-0ab23340/?originalSubdomain=uk

How COVID-19 Will Impact The Future Of Fuel Demand (October 2020)

https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/leadership/opinion/how-covid-19-will-impact-the-future-of-fuel-demand

Achieving 80% greenhouse gas reduction target in Saudi Arabia under low and medium oil prices (February 2017)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421516305717

Lord Browne is a Senior Advisor at General Atlantic on climate and Net Zero, providing strategic support and advice to the firm’s investment teams and portfolio companies.  

He served as Group Chief Executive of BP from 1995 to 2007, after having joined the company in 1966 as a university apprentice.

In 2007, Lord Browne joined Riverstone, where he was co-head of the world’s largest renewable energy private equity fund until 2015. He is currently Chairman of Wintershall Dea, Europe’s largest independent oil and gas company. He is independent co-Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Council on Science and Technology, Chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Chairman of the Courtauld Institute of Art, and a past President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.  

Lord Browne was the UK Government’s Lead Non-Executive Board Member from 2010 to 2015. He was knighted in 1998 and made a life peer in 2001. Lord Browne is the author of five books.

Further reading:

Lord Browne joins General Atlantic as Senior Advisor[Official Bio] (April 2021)

https://www.generalatlantic.com/media-article/lord-browne-joins-general-atlantic-as-senior-advisor-focused-on-climate-and-net-zero/

Saving the planet needs faith and science (May 2021)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/saving-the-planet-needs-faith-and-science-v2bzrl28z

Make, Think, Imagine: Engineering the Future of Civilisation (2019)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1526605716?ie=UTF8&tag=finantimes-21&camp=1634&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1526605716

Johan Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam.

He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, most known for developing the Planetary Boundaries framework for human development. Professor Rockström is a leading scientist on global water resources, with more than 25 years’ experience in applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 150 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability.  

Apart from that, Professor Rockström is a member of European Commission expert group: Mission Board for adaptation to climate change including societal transformation, chair of the Earth Commission and an elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Between 2004 and 2012 he led the Stockholm Environment Institute, in 2007 he co-founded the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Professor Rockström wrote not just scientific papers: together with Sir David Attenborough he’s working on a Netflix series ‘Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet’  but also co-authored a cookbook with recipes healthy for people and the planet.

Further reading: 

Official Bio https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/johanro

TED Talk “10 years to transform the future of humanity or destabilize the planet” (October 2020) https://www.ted.com/talks/johan\_rockstrom\_10\_years\_to\_transform\_the\_future\_of\_humanity\_or\_destabilize\_the\_planet

Johan Rockström: ‘We need bankers as well as activists… we have 10 years to cut emissions by half’ (May 2021) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/29/johan-rockstrom-interview-breaking-boundaries-attenborough-biden

Standing Up for a Sustainable World: Voices of Change (2020)

https://www.amazon.com/Standing-Up-Sustainable-World-Voices/dp/1800371799

Professor Lord Nicholas Stern is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, Chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and Head of the India Observatory at the London School of Economics.

Professor Stern led the Grantham Research Institute since its establishment in 2008. Between 2013 and 2017 he was the President of the British Academy. His academic career took him all over the world: he held appointments at, inter alia, Oxford University, MIT, Collège de France, the Indian Statistical Institute and the People’s University of China in Beijing. Professor Stern was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014.

Apart from his academic career, he worked for international institutions like the World Bank and the EBRD and for the British government. In that capacity, he led the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006, a pioneering work looking into long-term costs of climate change and long-term benefits of urgent and aggressive climate action.

Professor Stern was knighted for services to economics in 2004, was made a cross-bench life peer in 2007 and appointed Companion of Honour for services to economics, international relations and tackling climate change in 2017. Professor Stern holds 13 honorary degrees and numerous prizes.

Official Bio

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/nicholas-stern/

Stern Review (2006)

https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100407172811/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/stern_review_report.htm

The Investment Imperative for the G7 (June 2021)

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/g7-summit-economic-recovery-investment-priority-by-nicholas-stern-2021-06

G7 leadership for sustainable, resilient and inclusive economic recovery and growth - summary report (May 2021)

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/g7-leadership-for-sustainable-resilient-and-inclusive-economic-recovery-and-growth-summary-report/

WHO Air Polluton data

https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_1

Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency and Promise of Tackling Climate Change (2015)

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/why-are-we-waiting

Up this week is Simon Holmes à Court, the Australian investor and philanthropist with a passion for using data to change the world. 

In 2022, the federal elections in Australia delivered an upset, as around a third of the electorate turned their back on the established parties and voted in seven new independent MPs taking the total to 10. Simon was responsible for a crowdfunding initiative - Climate 200 - that supported 23 candidates in all, pledging to act on climate, political integrity and gender discrimination. He remains very involved in the challenge of pivoting Australia from a fossil fuel based economy to a clean energy superpower. 

Simon is an energy analyst, clean-tech investor, climate philanthropist, and director of the Smart Energy Council and the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network. He was co-founder of the Australian Wind Alliance and inaugural chair of the Melbourne Energy Institute’s Advisory Board. He is a respected commentator on the economic, political and engineering aspects of Australia’s energy transition. 

Links: Simon's 2022 book The Big Teal: https://publishing.monash.edu/product/the-big-teal/ 

Simon's ABC interview on the success of Climate 200 in the wake of the 2022 elections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Mhz6b7cg4 

Simon's 2021 talk - Independents and Climate - The Hope to End the Lost Decade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN_-1eLbLL8 

Simon's 2018 op-ed which triggered his expulsion from Kooyong 200: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/09/why-liddell-is-likely-to-close-in-2022-and-why-you-shouldnt-care

The Superpower Institute, working for Australian leadership in the transition: https://www.superpowerinstitute.com.au/

Gina Domanig is the Managing Partner and founder of Emerald Technology Ventures, the first independent cleantech venture capital fund in Europe.  

Gina currently serves on the boards of the following portfolio companies: GeoDigital International Inc, a geo-spatial intelligence provider for electric utilities, Spear Power Systems Inc, a battery management solutions provider for aerospace and marine and Urgently Inc, a digital platform for roadside assistance

In addition to Emerald activities Gina is a board member of Die Mobiliar, SolarPack Corporacion Tecnologica S.A., u-blox AG and Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy Foundation. She is a member of the advisory boards of the Institute on the Environment of the University of Minnesota, and the PRIME Impact Fund.  

Gina has over 35 years of experience in the area of finance, banking and venture capital – before founding Emerald in 2000 she was vice president at Sulzer, responsible for M&A.

Gina holds a Bachelor Degree in Finance from Arizona State University as well as MBA degrees from Thunderbird in Arizona and ESADE in Barcelona. 

Further reading:

Official bio:

https://emerald-ventures.com/team/emerald-team/?tx_emeraldteam_renderer%5Bmember%5D=1&tx_emeraldteam_renderer%5Baction%5D=show&tx_emeraldteam_renderer%5Bcontroller%5D=Member&cHash=58a351934015e61ab3c7c10313c410c0

The start-up ecosystem during COVID-19: A talk with Gina Domanig (March 2020)

https://www.startup-energy-transition.com/the-start-up-ecosystem-during-covid-19-a-talk-with-gina-domanig/

Venture capital pioneer Gina Domanig: Swiss start-ups “could achieve a lot more” (April 2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55KbjZmVOB8

Angelina Galiteva has been appointed Chair of the California Independent System Operator’s Board of Governors in 2020, after a decade spent on the Board as a member.  

Angelina is the founder & Chair of the Board of Renewables 100 Policy Institute. She is also a Renewable Energy Expert Speaker at the US Department of State.

Angelina’s carer in energy started in 1994 when she was a Power Services Analyst at the New York Power Authority. In 1997 she became an Executive Director at the LA Department of Water and Power. Angelina has experience in private sector as well - in 2003 she founded NEOoptions, a renewable energy and new technology product design firm.

Angelina is a lawyer by education: she holds a J.D. and LLM Degrees, with a specialization in Environmental and Energy Law

Further reading:

Angelina’s LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelina-galiteva-51b92/

Convo: Angelina Galiteva, Chair of Board of Governors of California Independent System Operator (April 2021)

https://ecomotion.us/podcast/convo-angelina-galiteva-chair-of-board-of-governors-of-california-independent-system-operator-4-21/

Angelina Galiteva - 100% Renewables - SC-RISE Solar Valley Complement Video Series (September 2020)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqnr7jTrBjc            

ReEnergy Africa

https://www.reenergyafrica.com/

Catherine McKenna is a Canadian Liberal politician serving as the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities since 2019. Before that she was the Minister of Environment and Climate Change for 4 years.  

Her ministerial mandate includes ensuring infrastructure investments support just economic growth and the clean energy transition. Her ministerial mandate includes, inter alia,  delivering of “accessible affordable, active and zero-emissions transit options”, “investing in large-scale building retrofits and clean power” and “continuing to close the infrastructure gap in Indigenous communities, particularly with respect to affordable housing”.  

Before taking the infrastructure and communities portfolio, Catherine was  in charge of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. She was appointed just before COP21 in Paris and played a significant role during the summit.  

Catherine is a lawyer by education: she co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad, now called Level, a charity through which Canadian lawyers are able to work on pro bono cases around the world. She has also worked in leading Canadian and Indonesian law firms and  was a negotiator with the United Nations mission in East Timor.

Catherine holds degrees from the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and McGill University’s Faculty of Law. A mom of three, avid swimmer and canoeist,  Minister McKenna is a long-time resident of the Glebe in Ottawa.

Further reading:

Official bio

https://www.canada.ca/en/government/ministers/catherine-mckenna.html

Minister Catherine McKenna: 'We need to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies' (May 2021)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2021/05/04/news/minister-catherine-mckenna-infrastructure-investment-climate-solutions-Biden-fossil-fuel-subsidies

McKenna: Five years after the Paris Agreement, we’ve reached a new tipping point on climate change (December 2020)

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/mckenna-five-years-after-the-paris-agreement-weve-reached-a-new-tipping-point-on-climate-change