Speaker 1: Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati. This week Presidents, Billionaires
Speaker 1: and power.
Speaker 2: Back.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, nearly thirty people competed to be the
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee for president, all hoping to go against Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: One of them was Tom Stire. He spent ten million
Speaker 1: dollars of his own money on ads to drum up
Speaker 1: support to impeach Donald Trump, and then over the course
Speaker 1: of his presidential campaign, spent hundreds of millions of dollars more.
Speaker 2: Join us and tell your member of Congress that they
Speaker 2: have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and
Speaker 2: start doing what's right.
Speaker 1: Long story shot, Styre dropped out, Trump lost, and Joe
Speaker 1: Biden became president. But Stire was not just any billionaire
Speaker 1: frustrated with Trump. He entered the race with significant fundraising
Speaker 1: experience for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and also from many
Speaker 1: environmental causes. He started a political group, Next Gen, that
Speaker 1: focuses on getting young people to vote for Democrats and
Speaker 1: environmental candidates. Tom's wealth comes from his decades as a
Speaker 1: hedge fund manager at Farallon Capital, which specialized in distressed assets,
Speaker 1: assets that people often sell at below market price for
Speaker 1: quick cash. Some of his investments were in big fossil
Speaker 1: fuel projects. Tom left Parallon Capital in twenty twelve before
Speaker 1: becoming a full time environmental activist and political donor. After
Speaker 1: the presidential campaign. In twenty twenty one, he announced a
Speaker 1: return to finance through Galvanized Climate Solutions. In September, Galvanis
Speaker 1: announced it had raised one billion dollars for its Innovation
Speaker 1: and Expansion Fund, which is designed to invest in companies
Speaker 1: that would have an immediate impact on reducing emissions. I
Speaker 1: spoke with Tom at COP twenty eighth in December to
Speaker 1: ask why he got out of fossil fuels, the consequences
Speaker 1: of bad carbon accounting, and what the return of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump would mean for global climate ambitions. Tom, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Your history coming into climate has been as an investor,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the money that you made when
Speaker 1: you ran in your hedge fund Firelong Capital was through
Speaker 1: things like constructing a four thousand acre coal mine in
Speaker 1: New South Wales. You've since left that firm and you've
Speaker 1: sold off your fossil fuel assets. But what prompted you
Speaker 1: to go from making money with fossil fuel assets to
Speaker 1: being a climate guy.
Speaker 2: Well, let me say this. We invested in pharilhan in
Speaker 2: every industry, including fossil fuels. We were not fossil fuel investors.
Speaker 2: We were generalist investors across the board. In fact, I
Speaker 2: went back and looked, because of questions like that, to
Speaker 2: see what percentage of our investments and income came from
Speaker 2: fossil fuels, and it was substantially less than fossil fuels
Speaker 2: is a percent of industry, either in the United States
Speaker 2: or the world. But the truth is, starting in about
Speaker 2: two thousand and six, as a result of a trip
Speaker 2: to Alaska, I really got a chance to see physically
Speaker 2: what climate change looks like. And I made a decision,
Speaker 2: and our whole family made a decision that we were
Speaker 2: going to actually try and go after it. And so,
Speaker 2: starting in two thousand and six, I went through a
Speaker 2: series of revelations about what was necessary to do, what
Speaker 2: was possible to do, and what was critical to do.
Speaker 2: And part of it, of course, was getting rid of
Speaker 2: all my fossil fuel assets, you know, more than a
Speaker 2: decade ago. But really what it really was about is
Speaker 2: not so much of avoiding those problems. It's really about
Speaker 2: I say, it's not about devestment, it's about investment at
Speaker 2: this point. Really, what we have to do is make
Speaker 2: this transition. And so it's really a question of there's
Speaker 2: going to be some big emitting industries which are going
Speaker 2: to be a critical part of decarbonization because they're going
Speaker 2: to have to change their supply chains. So I look
Speaker 2: at this honestly, for everybody in the world, including you
Speaker 2: and me, we've all participated in a fossil fuel economy.
Speaker 2: I certainly have, and I think what's necessary to recognize
Speaker 2: is that's an economy which really can't continue to exist,
Speaker 2: and so we have to figure out how to make
Speaker 2: the transition in a way that's best for the people
Speaker 2: of this plane.
Speaker 1: Well, we continue to participate in the fossil fuel economy
Speaker 1: because sometimes, well oftentimes we don't have the alternatives ready.
Speaker 1: We are here talking in Dubai, having flown from our
Speaker 1: relative homes to this.
Speaker 2: This is the biggest emitting airport in the world.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and so in September galvanized and now is that
Speaker 1: it closes its Innovation and Expansion Fund, which will invest
Speaker 1: in startups aiming to provide climate benefits in the next decade.
Speaker 1: Which companies have you invested in and why are you
Speaker 1: excited about them?
Speaker 2: So we've invested in about fifteen companies so far. I'd
Speaker 2: like to talk about a couple of them. In every case,
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do is invest in companies that
Speaker 2: can scale to meet a global problem, and in many
Speaker 2: cases we're in places where the problem is not the
Speaker 2: one that is the most obvious to everybody looking at climate. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, we invested in a company called Regrow, which
Speaker 2: really gives information to consumer package good companies, food companies
Speaker 2: about their supply chains so they can know actually what
Speaker 2: the emissions profiles are of the supply chains of the
Speaker 2: people who are growing the food, so they can figure
Speaker 2: out how to clean it up. From a scope three standpoint,
Speaker 2: this is an information based process. Agriculture is a critical
Speaker 2: part of the solution and the problem in climate emissions,
Speaker 2: and therefore having the information and making it available to
Speaker 2: the people who are really the end customers is something
Speaker 2: that we consider has to happen and has to happen
Speaker 2: in the next decade.
Speaker 1: And you said a couple of examples, so.
Speaker 2: Let me give you another one. One of the hard
Speaker 2: to abate sectors is concrete and cement and that's a
Speaker 2: worldwide industry produces about eight percent of emissions. It's one
Speaker 2: that has been very resistant to improvement. And what we're
Speaker 2: doing there is once again using information on a real
Speaker 2: time basis to change the mix of the cement and
Speaker 2: concrete without weakening it in any way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: making it less expensive to produce, and also reducing emissions
Speaker 2: by up to fifty percent. So when we look at
Speaker 2: these in every case, what our opinion is you have
Speaker 2: to be able to provide a better, cheaper, faster product
Speaker 2: in the marketplace that people will choose for its own sake,
Speaker 2: which also dramatically reduces emissions.
Speaker 1: Over the past five years, we've seen a number of
Speaker 1: clients funds launched, especially investing in startups, and that's been
Speaker 1: really important for startups to get going. There's been a
Speaker 1: crowding in of capital, there's been a crowding in of ideas.
Speaker 1: But you're also doing something different beyond the traditional investing
Speaker 1: in startups. You are getting into real estate. You're going
Speaker 1: to as I understand by billions of dollars worth of assets.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're housing students, maybe they're warehouses, and you're going
Speaker 1: to make them more energy efficient and you're somehow going
Speaker 1: to make money from it.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are. I mean this is a classic brown
Speaker 2: to green move that literally no one in the United
Speaker 2: States is doing.
Speaker 1: So how is it classic though, Because.
Speaker 2: What you're really doing is making investments to clean up
Speaker 2: the emissions profile of a building, which, as you said,
Speaker 2: could be a warehouse, it could be a manufacturing facility,
Speaker 2: it could be student housing. So you're making investments to
Speaker 2: clean up its emissions pro file, which will indeed save
Speaker 2: it money and increase its net operating income, make people
Speaker 2: more likely to want to rent it, therefore increase your income,
Speaker 2: get a higher multiple when you leave, and make more
Speaker 2: money as a result of it. And we need to
Speaker 2: do that to show other people in the built environment
Speaker 2: that doing this is a way to add return on
Speaker 2: an annual basis in a measurable and important amount.
Speaker 1: Have you already bought those assets?
Speaker 2: We have just done our first close as a matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I believe last month, and that gives us
Speaker 2: the ability to start closing assets. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much the people listening to this podcast know about American
Speaker 2: real estate, but American real estate is in huge flux
Speaker 2: as a result of the increased interest rates in the
Speaker 2: United States, and so as a result, what we're seeing
Speaker 2: is the beginning of a huge supply demand imbalance where
Speaker 2: a lot of people are going to be forced to
Speaker 2: sell and there are very few people with the money
Speaker 2: to buy. So we believe it's a very good time
Speaker 2: from a market standpoint. We're looking at a number of
Speaker 2: what we think are unusually anomalously attractive situations with much
Speaker 2: bigger spreads to the curve because people are forced to sell.
Speaker 2: We're probably in serious negotiation on about seven properties around
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 1: What you said you're doing with your real estate assets
Speaker 1: is trying to show that you can actually make money great.
Speaker 2: More money, make more money from around that it's more
Speaker 2: profitable to do the clean thing.
Speaker 1: But that's the case yet to be proven. What's the
Speaker 1: case that you have proven that would allow you to
Speaker 1: buy into this idea, which would be climate capitalism.
Speaker 2: I started Galvanize with my old partner and old friend
Speaker 2: Katie Hall Catherine Hall, to basically do a series of
Speaker 2: investment activities all around impact. We have an impact team
Speaker 2: that looks at every single investment before we make it,
Speaker 2: monitors it after we make it to prove that in fact,
Speaker 2: it is making a difference in in terms of emissions.
Speaker 2: But long before Katie and I started Galvanized Climate Solutions,
Speaker 2: I had been investing in clean energy really for it
Speaker 2: at least a decade. So in fact, when I was
Speaker 2: looking at this, I know that what is called clean
Speaker 2: tech one point zero had a lot of issues. But
Speaker 2: two things happened. A we did really well and B
Speaker 2: if you look around the world and you look at
Speaker 2: what's happened to clean energy compared to fossil fuel energy
Speaker 2: in terms of costs, you can see that whereas people
Speaker 2: seem to think that solar and wind is more expensive
Speaker 2: than natural gas or diesel, in fact it's much cheaper.
Speaker 2: And we've seen the cost of storage go down by
Speaker 2: ninety percent and it'll go down another ninety percent. So
Speaker 2: when you say what's going to make it work, our
Speaker 2: attitude is people are going to buy things that are cheaper,
Speaker 2: better and faster.
Speaker 1: Another area you've invested in is in carbon accounting. There
Speaker 1: is a whole mess around carbon accounting on corporate emissions
Speaker 1: because the way you count them their different scopes. They
Speaker 1: scope one, which is direct emissions from your own assets
Speaker 1: burning natural gas in your building. Scope two, if somebody
Speaker 1: is burning natural gas for you and providing electricity or
Speaker 1: scope three, which is essentially anything that your company touches.
Speaker 1: There's been an increase in the amount of disclosures that
Speaker 1: companies have made voluntarily in some parts of the world,
Speaker 1: including in California. There are now regulations coming in to
Speaker 1: require that companies tell the public how much they emit
Speaker 1: on all of those scopes. It's happening in the UK,
Speaker 1: it's happening in New Zealand. The EU at some point
Speaker 1: will come up with its own rules. But how far
Speaker 1: does just disclosure take you? Because it's not like financial accounting.
Speaker 1: If a company commits financial accounting fraud, they pay huge
Speaker 1: fines and sometimes even go to jail. With carbon accounting,
Speaker 1: none of that exists right now. We're only at the
Speaker 1: phase of requiring disclosures, and even there it's only really California.
Speaker 2: So can I correct you? Yes, what California is requiring
Speaker 2: is that every company that does business in California, the
Speaker 2: fourth largest economy in the world yep, that does more
Speaker 2: than a billion dollars worth of annual revenues anywhere, has
Speaker 2: to report there in California. No a billion dollars of
Speaker 2: revenues anywhere in the world combined. So that's I think
Speaker 2: about five thousand companies. Right, then you have to report
Speaker 2: through Scope three. And when you think about it, so
Speaker 2: you're right, you say, Okay, there's no enforcement mechanism for
Speaker 2: people who lie, but for starters. You're forcing people to
Speaker 2: actually understand for themselves what the emissions profile are is
Speaker 2: of everything that they touch. So, from my standpoint, the
Speaker 2: ability to measure in a reliable way disclose and enable
Speaker 2: all all the good think you know, all the people
Speaker 2: who want to do this from a good standpoint, including
Speaker 2: the managers of the company, the people who are outside
Speaker 2: the company but want to see what's going on. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, if you and I each had a factory
Speaker 2: opposite sides of the street, and yours was very clean
Speaker 2: and mine was very dirty, then everybody in our neighborhood
Speaker 2: and everybody around the world can see that I'm not
Speaker 2: doing a good job and you are. And then, third
Speaker 2: of all, it enables policy in terms of certainly accounting,
Speaker 2: but much beyond that in terms of border adjustment and ability.
Speaker 2: Since this is basically, if you'll excuse my saying, so,
Speaker 2: an accounting flaw that people are allowed to pollute without
Speaker 2: paying for their pollution. Ye all this says is okay,
Speaker 2: now we know what your pollution is, sir. What we
Speaker 2: choose to do with that is definitely up in the air.
Speaker 2: But until we know, we don't have any ability to
Speaker 2: do any of the things I described.
Speaker 1: Now. One topic that's being talked about is blended finance,
Speaker 1: which is the idea where different types of capital, philanthropic capital,
Speaker 1: government grants loans from multilateral development banks de risk a
Speaker 1: project in developing country, and then private capital can come through.
Speaker 1: You've signed the giving pledge, which is you're going to
Speaker 1: give all your wealth away.
Speaker 2: I believe the pledge is actually half oh sorry for
Speaker 2: what it's worth, but I think the actual answer will
Speaker 2: be more than that.
Speaker 1: But sorry, sorry. It says the majority of your wealthy,
Speaker 1: right majority. You've signed the giving Pledge, which says that
Speaker 1: you're going to give the majority of your wealth away.
Speaker 1: Have you considered using some of that to try and
Speaker 1: speed up the transition in developing countries, which is where
Speaker 1: currently the need is the greatest.
Speaker 2: So let's just take a step back. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think the basic rule of climate responsibility is the less
Speaker 2: responsible you are for the problem, the more you're going
Speaker 2: to suffer. And so what you're directly alluding to is
Speaker 2: the fact that the global South by and large, has
Speaker 2: emitted a fraction of the greenhouse gases that are causing
Speaker 2: this problem and is suffering disproportionately, so that, for instance,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know
Speaker 2: that Pakistan, a third of whom the population of was
Speaker 2: displaced by a gigantic flood, had emitted way less than
Speaker 2: one percent of all the emissions since this began. I
Speaker 2: mean I heard the numbers as low as one tenth
Speaker 2: of one percent. So that's shockingly unfair, obviously. And so
Speaker 2: the question is, how are we in fact going to
Speaker 2: deal with the cost the direct costs of the climate
Speaker 2: crisis in the developing world, and how are we going
Speaker 2: to enable the developing world to actually be part of
Speaker 2: the solution and to be I'm talking about making money
Speaker 2: and solving a problem, and how are we going to
Speaker 2: make sure that the developing world participates in that opportunity.
Speaker 2: So let's discuss a couple of things. One of them
Speaker 2: is what's really going on in the developing world. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, in eighty six percent of the net new
Speaker 2: electricity generation capacity was actually clean was renewable. The issue
Speaker 2: here is not really about the project, it's not really
Speaker 2: about the cash flows. It's really about sovereign risk. And
Speaker 2: so I know people talk about blended finance, and I
Speaker 2: know that they look at all those different levels and
Speaker 2: they think that they can in effect provide cheap first
Speaker 2: loss money from governments or nonprofits and that that will
Speaker 2: make it worth it for the people who are providing
Speaker 2: the private sector equity finance riskier finance. But the truth is,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, the critical part is to take away
Speaker 2: that sovereign risk, which goes through another that shows up
Speaker 2: in a number of different ways, and I've lived all
Speaker 2: of them, I promise you. But that is really the
Speaker 2: issue where if, in fact, I don't care if it's
Speaker 2: the World Bank or a government or the United Nations
Speaker 2: can take away that risk, then we just get back
Speaker 2: to the project, and then we just get back to
Speaker 2: the cash flows. And that is a place where private
Speaker 2: industry can be very aggressive when it comes to sovereign risk.
Speaker 2: If you think about it, when something goes wrong in
Speaker 2: a country, everything gets hurted, and it's not like the
Speaker 2: fact that there's first loss money is going to make
Speaker 2: you better. Yeah, the first loss, money's gone, so you.
Speaker 1: After the break. While the youth vote is key to
Speaker 1: US climate policy, we are less than a year away
Speaker 1: from another US election, and pulls, you know, twelve months out.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much to believe them, but do
Speaker 1: suggest that Trump has a real chance of getting re elected.
Speaker 1: What would trump victory mean for progress on climate given
Speaker 1: the past four years under your.
Speaker 2: Wide Well, I know that what you're driving at is
Speaker 2: the idea that mister Trump, in a second term as president,
Speaker 2: would go after the Inflation Reduction Act, would go after
Speaker 2: all of the climate related policies, And in fact, the
Speaker 2: Heritage Foundation wrote up a long profile of exactly how
Speaker 2: to go after every climate related government investment and program.
Speaker 2: So I think that is a starting place for what
Speaker 2: people worry about. But I actually don't think that's the
Speaker 2: biggest risk. I think the real risk here is that
Speaker 2: for us all, not just Americans, but people around the
Speaker 2: globe to come together and solve this problem, we basically
Speaker 2: have to acknowledge not just that we have a problem,
Speaker 2: but that we have to solve it together. I think
Speaker 2: the biggest problem with mister Trump would be that as
Speaker 2: he moves much more towards a selfish autocracy trying to
Speaker 2: literally raw walls around the United States as well as figuratively.
Speaker 2: That sends a message to the rest of the world
Speaker 2: to do the same. Since this is a global problem.
Speaker 2: If we decide every country is in it for itself
Speaker 2: only itself and has no interest in participating together and
Speaker 2: working together, that shoots a hole in everything we're trying
Speaker 2: to accomplish.
Speaker 1: And yet the US in general has been a problem
Speaker 1: for the world when it comes to climate When the
Speaker 1: world has been united on trying to do something about it,
Speaker 1: the US has in the past been the exception. So
Speaker 1: it does matter. I agree that the global risk of
Speaker 1: a more protectionist world is a big one, and of
Speaker 1: course we're talking at a time when the US has
Speaker 1: just hit a new record on oil and gas.
Speaker 2: Production, biggest oil and gas producer in the world. Correct
Speaker 2: highly aware it will also point out to you that
Speaker 2: what I consider to be the most significant cop achievement
Speaker 2: was probably the Paris Accords twenty fifteen, which really began
Speaker 2: a year earlier with a direct bilateral agreement between the
Speaker 2: US and China, then the US and India, then US
Speaker 2: and Mexico. So in fact, what I was trying to
Speaker 2: say to you, was it's really critical in this that
Speaker 2: the US be part of the solution, you're saying, Tom,
Speaker 2: When they aren't part of the solution, it really sucks. Yes, yes, check,
Speaker 2: I got that, and that was my voyt. Yes. When
Speaker 2: the US is part of the solution, then people feel
Speaker 2: like everybody's linking arms and dragging together. When the US
Speaker 2: pulls back and says no, we have oil and gas interests,
Speaker 2: we have coal interests, we're in it for ourselves, good luck,
Speaker 2: everybody else says the exact same thing, and the world
Speaker 2: can't progress. That's why I said to me, the biggest
Speaker 2: risk isn't the IRA. To me, the biggest risk is
Speaker 2: how we relate as countries, both bilaterally and across the board.
Speaker 1: You have used your money to try and move the
Speaker 1: ball on climate, and so what are you doing to ensure,
Speaker 1: regardless of the political outcome over the next twelve months,
Speaker 1: that the gains made on climate stay continuous and maybe grow.
Speaker 2: Well. Look, so, first of all, there are two things
Speaker 2: that I believe in that scale around this problem. One
Speaker 2: is government, which I've just made a long, impassioned argument for,
Speaker 2: which basically sets the rules. You know, when you were
Speaker 2: saying why even measure it? It's like you measure it,
Speaker 2: so you're going to have a framework to actually manage
Speaker 2: it in a policy way as well as in a
Speaker 2: corporate way. So that's one thing we can definitely do.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that we can do is we
Speaker 2: can really drive down costs and provide better, cheaper, faster
Speaker 2: stuff that happens to be clean. So what am I
Speaker 2: doing about it? For one thing, I believe that when
Speaker 2: you look at US elections over the last decade, the
Speaker 2: critical factor about who wins is youth turnout. People between
Speaker 2: the ages of eighteen and thirty five, biggest generation in
Speaker 2: American history, most diverse generation in American history, most progressive
Speaker 2: generation in American history, voting at half the rates of
Speaker 2: other Americans when they turn out progressives. When when they
Speaker 2: don't turn out progressive louse period the act.
Speaker 1: And currently the polls say, given what's happening in Israel, and.
Speaker 2: So we started the largest youth registration and engagement organization
Speaker 2: in American history in twenty thirteen, which still remains the
Speaker 2: largest youth registration engagement history organization in American history. I
Speaker 2: know what the polls say. Believe me, I understand we
Speaker 2: probably generate those polls to be exact. So I'm very
Speaker 2: concerned about how this will turn out for a variety
Speaker 2: of reasons. But I believe this is a very progressive generation.
Speaker 2: I believe that we will get back to a place
Speaker 2: where Democrats' win seventy percent of those votes. And if
Speaker 2: that's true and we go over fifty percent turnout, we're
Speaker 2: going to win.
Speaker 1: You held a fundraising event for Joe Biden recently. How
Speaker 1: much of your own money are you giving to Democrat
Speaker 1: candidates over the next year.
Speaker 2: First off, of course, I don't know, but that's not
Speaker 2: really what I'm doing politically. What I'm doing politically is
Speaker 2: trying to make sure that we have a representative democracy,
Speaker 2: including young people. And to me, if we get a
Speaker 2: fair turnout of people across the board, I believe that
Speaker 2: we'll get the right answer. I really do. And I
Speaker 2: think that the issue here is not about convincing people.
Speaker 2: It is really not. It is really a question of
Speaker 2: are we It's who shows up to vote. I mean
Speaker 2: in the United States, I always whenever people are talking
Speaker 2: about persuasion, I would say, to let me ask you
Speaker 2: one question, have you ever persuaded one Trump voter? To
Speaker 2: flip one time.
Speaker 1: Well, this is the other question I wanted to ask.
Speaker 1: Then I know that kind the politics in America is
Speaker 1: polarized and polarizing, and I don't know how far apart
Speaker 1: it continues to go. But there are still some Republicans
Speaker 1: who get it, who understand climate change.
Speaker 2: Okay, just so you know, there's a as I mean,
Speaker 2: I may in fact follow this more closely than you do. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's a Pew report out earlier this week which basically said, Look,
Speaker 2: Republicans know climate change if you ask them. Somewhere, depending
Speaker 2: on how you ask the question, between mid fifties and
Speaker 2: mid seventies of registered Republicans acknowledge climate change, acknowledge its
Speaker 2: human cause, and would like to move to clean energy.
Speaker 2: Check that's not how American politics works. Yes, if you
Speaker 2: ask Democrats is this important issue? By and large, they
Speaker 2: say yes, and a pretty high number of them say
Speaker 2: it's a critical issue. If you ask Republicans if this
Speaker 2: is an important issue, they say absolutely not. It's our
Speaker 2: nineteenth issue. So the fact that they agree is one point,
Speaker 2: but they don't vote on it. And if you don't
Speaker 2: vote on it, then it doesn't matter to the person
Speaker 2: who's running for office. And that means that the other
Speaker 2: things that matter around an issue are the things that
Speaker 2: actually determine what office holders do. And let me use
Speaker 2: an example that's not climate I think something like ninety
Speaker 2: percent of Americans would like to have much stricter gun rolls.
Speaker 2: We're all sick of it. We all get it, everyone
Speaker 2: gets it. Most hardly any of that ninety percent votes
Speaker 2: on it. Of the ten percent to disagree, they all
Speaker 2: vote on it. So if you're running for office, you
Speaker 2: sit there and go like, Okay, I can get ten
Speaker 2: percent for free and lose nothing, or I can do
Speaker 2: the right thing and lose ten percent. We don't have
Speaker 2: good gun roles.
Speaker 1: But going back to the Inflation Reduction Act, one of
Speaker 1: the things that's baked into it, which is the money
Speaker 1: it gives out largely is going to Republican states. Have
Speaker 1: you been working with some of these Republicans to ensure
Speaker 1: that the money that they are getting will be more
Speaker 1: that they can continue to get, that they will continue
Speaker 1: to use the Inflation Reduction Act and not destroy it.
Speaker 2: Look, the experience of people on in American politics is
Speaker 2: that when a plant goes into their district, they support
Speaker 2: the plant no matter what including clean tech plants, including
Speaker 2: EV plants in very very conservative red states. So do
Speaker 2: I believe that they're actually going to yank everything from
Speaker 2: the inflation? No? You ask me what am I worried about,
Speaker 2: and I told you global cooperation. Am I. I didn't
Speaker 2: say anything about IRA because from my standpoint, by the
Speaker 2: time we get there, it will be largely baked in
Speaker 2: in terms of the deployment aspects.
Speaker 1: Now, there are things in politics that are sometimes not said.
Speaker 1: A lot of said, but sometimes things are not.
Speaker 2: Settings are not said.
Speaker 1: You know Joe Biden very well. What do you think
Speaker 1: is a thing that he hasn't said that you wish
Speaker 1: he would have said or you would say for him?
Speaker 2: The issue with Joe Biden running for president in twenty
Speaker 2: four is all about his age. You know. I think
Speaker 2: when people look at the job that he's done, they
Speaker 2: will say, by and large, he's been an excellent president
Speaker 2: that across the board he has actually produced, you know,
Speaker 2: very very well, put together a really good team, make
Speaker 2: good decisions. The economy is doing well. I think the
Speaker 2: issue with President Biden is that people are worried about
Speaker 2: and the Republicans go after him in terms of his
Speaker 2: being old and I can say this having spent some
Speaker 2: time with him. He's very smart. People do not understand.
Speaker 2: There is no doubt in my mind that intellectually he
Speaker 2: is just fine. He has never been somebody who's been
Speaker 2: a great public speaker, and I think that people therefore
Speaker 2: take that and suggest that he's not a good thinker.
Speaker 2: But I think if you spend any time with him personally,
Speaker 2: you realize, oh my god, this guy's sharp, honest to goodness,
Speaker 2: and that's what I think. He can't say that, but
Speaker 2: that is the truth.
Speaker 1: So bringing this back to Galvanized, then you're looking for
Speaker 1: near term impact. You're only just started, like fifteen companies.
Speaker 2: Well, we're doing it, but as you said, we're doing
Speaker 2: a number of different investment activities and we're going to
Speaker 2: keep doing more.
Speaker 1: But what is it that you hope you would have
Speaker 1: achieved by the end of this decade with Galvanized.
Speaker 2: I would hope that what we're doing is that we're
Speaker 2: a serious financial player. Every single investment has real impact,
Speaker 2: and we can measure that impact, and we want to
Speaker 2: do that in a number of areas to show that.
Speaker 2: In fact, this is the way that people seem to
Speaker 2: think that there's a trade off between impact and returns.
Speaker 2: We want to prove the opposite. I think the oil
Speaker 2: and gas industry makes about two and a half trillion
Speaker 2: dollars a year. They get one and a half trillion
Speaker 2: dollars of hard subsities. If you inclose indirect subsidies, they
Speaker 2: get seven trillion dollars a year. It's like we're a
Speaker 2: place where the lines have crossed, the lines have cossed,
Speaker 2: and we're not even charging for pollution. The smart money
Speaker 2: is moving away from oil and gas. The smart money
Speaker 2: is moving to the future of a much cleaner, more
Speaker 2: sustainable world.
Speaker 1: And in your own journey, what would be the places
Speaker 1: where you would check yourself, where you may have a
Speaker 1: time horizon and you may want to evaluate whether what
Speaker 1: you're doing is working, whether it's paying off.
Speaker 2: I've been working on climate for more than fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I spent eight years making no money, but in fact
Speaker 2: pouring money into the idea of changing the way Americans
Speaker 2: thought about climate and trying to get us to win
Speaker 2: the argument so that in fact we wouldn't be disappointing
Speaker 2: you when we went to different cops around the world.
Speaker 2: But we're showing up with vigor and gusto to do
Speaker 2: the right thing, and I've been trying to show that.
Speaker 2: Now we're at the execution phase where we have to
Speaker 2: get it done. So is there anything that is going
Speaker 2: to prevent me from continuing on that journey? I guess
Speaker 2: either I could die or we'd win. Either of those
Speaker 2: would make me stop.
Speaker 1: Thank you, tom My Pleasure. Thank you for listening to Zero.
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Speaker 1: The producer of this episode is Oscar Boyd and senior
Speaker 1: producer is Christine driscoll Our. Theme music is composed by
Speaker 1: wonder Lee. Special thanks to Kira Bindram, Tiffany Choi, and
Speaker 1: Todd Woody. I'm Makshatrati back next week.