Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change Michael Liebreich, Bryony Worthington

Welcome to season 12 of Cleaning Up! If you want a sense of the trajectory of climate action, you have to understand China, and you have to understand finance. There is no one better to share insights on both than Dr Ma Jun, Founder and President of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability in Beijing.

Bryony and Michael round up the eleventh season of Cleaning Up this week. They explore the themes running through the episodes, from theories of change to innovation, and discuss the things that surprised them, the moments they liked (or didn't) and reasons for optimism for the transition.

Michael chats with Saul Griffith, Australian-born engineer, inventor, advisor, author and 2007 MacArthur "Genius". He specialises in clean and renewable energy technologies, and has founded a dozen technology companies across 20 years in Silicon Valley, as well as authoring 3 books, including `Electrify', and `The Big Switch'. He has recently turned his attention from Otherlab, his independent Research and Development lab, to policy work and writing, including founding Rewiring America and Rewiring Australia, non-partisan organisations dedicated to electrification and decarbonisation and the associated policy and regulatory implications of meeting our climate goals.

Bryony speaks to two fascinating guests, both specialising in methane emissions, their causes and impacts: Dr. Sebastien Biraud and Sharon Wilson.

Dr. Biraud is a biogeochemist, leading the Climate Sciences Department. Sebastien's work has taken him to the tropical rainforests of the Amazon, the great plains of the United States, and the Arctic tundra. He is currently co-leading/leading projects for the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission. These projects involve integrating and applying high-precision greenhouse gas observations to advance research on the atmospheric carbon cycle and to enhance measurement, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas emissions.

Sharon is a 5th generation Texan who, after 12 years working for the oil and gas industry in Ft. Worth, left and bought 42 acres in Wise County. Unknown to her at the time was that George Mitchell was experimenting in Wise County to figure out how to produce oil and gas from shale. She had a ringside seat at the sneak preview called Fracking Impacts. This experience prompted her to join Earthworks’, working on their Oil & Gas Accountability Project in 2010. In 2014, she became a certified optical gas imaging thermographer and now travels across the U.S. making visible the invisible methane pollution from oil and gas facilities through her non-profit, Oilfield Witness, and giving tours to media, Members of Congress, state lawmakers, regulators, and investment bankers.

This week, Michael presents the second part of his two-parter for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, exploring the bear and bull cases for the net zero transition. This week is the bull case: the "5 superheroes" of the transition, 5 forces/trends even more powerful than last week's "5 horsemen", which can prevail in the challenge of rapidly decarbonising the global economy. The 5 superheroes are: Exponential Growth, Systems Solutions, Great Power Competition, Disappearing Demand, and the Primary Energy Fallacy. And stay tuned until the end for a 6th "bonus" superhero!

This audioblog is based on Michael's Bloomberg New Energy Finance opinion piece of the same title.

Michael is solo this week on Cleaning Up, outlining the "5 horsemen" of the net-zero transition - the five greatest obstacles to the net zero transition. These 5 horsemen are: the economics of energy solutions, the electrical grid, the demand for critical mineral, political and social inertia, predatory delay by the powerful incumbents. This audioblog is based on Michael's Bloomberg New Energy Finance opinion piece of the same title.