WEBVTT

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I'm Manveen Rana here in Davos
and I'm joined by Maurice from

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BCG.

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How are the conversations here
at Davos around climate?

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I know that's one of the biggest
themes here this year.

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How are they going?

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Yeah, well, I've been spending
most of my time on the energy

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and the climate perspective,
which is my main area of

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interest and focus.

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And what I've been looking for
is the linkages between COP28

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and Davos, and COP28 was about
some big top-level pledges that

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were made.

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And so for me, Davos was about
OK, taking those forward and how

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do you make them real.

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And there's three I call out.

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One is around reducing methane
emissions, another one was

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around renewables and the pace
of deployment.

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We want to accelerate that by a
factor of three.

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And then the other piece was
around energy efficiency.

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And I think I've seen some
really good progress on the

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first two.

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There's a pretty strong
consensus that we have all the

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technology and all the business
cases we need to get the methane

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out, and the companies have made
the pledges around doing that.

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Around the renewables piece,

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it's ambitious but I think we
can do it as well, and we've

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seen some really good progress
already.

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Just take a look at China where
they are right now.

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The US is making good progress.

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Europe is making good progress
and we can do more. On energy

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efficiency, that one

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I think there's a lot more
ambiguity around of what it

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really means.

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And when we break it down and we
look at industry, and we look at

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transport, and we look at
buildings, the answer on each of

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them is quite nuanced, and I
think that's where we need to

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continue to spend more time and
develop thinking around that.

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So discussions taking place
around energy efficiency.

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The other themes here at Davos
this year are AI and geopolitics

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because it's such an unstable
time in the world.

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How do those, how do they merge
with the idea of climate, what

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are you seeing?

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So I've actually seen some
convergence there, right.

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So if you take AI and climate
together, the potential,

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everybody's talking potential
for AI in many areas, but the

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potential to actually help us as
we go through energy transition

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is quite high.

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There's there's a lot of
operational improvements,

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there's a lot of things around
network optimization with

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customer interactions.

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Some of those use cases are
already known.

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But I think where the
interesting ones that I've heard

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about here are additional
opportunities to speed up some

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of the newer technologies.

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I'll give you an example in
direct air capture.

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We know that the biggest
challenge for direct air capture

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is to get the cost down to
something we can afford as a

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society and as industry.

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I've heard some really
encouraging progress around

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bringing those costs down even
through, I would say, initial

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looks using AI of how we can
optimize the production

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processes, how we can optimize a
lot of the backend things going

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on.

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So those two I see coming
together in quite a positive and

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synergetic way.

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If you think about climate and
geopolitics, I've heard some

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kind of new and interesting
ideas as well that I think we

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need to to explore a bit more.

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So bringing it back to how have
we used energy, and energy

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policy in the past, there was
this concept of energy diplomacy

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which allowed countries to find
common ground and things to work

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around even when their
geopolitics weren't necessarily

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in line.

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And I think the thinking right
now is because we're in a bit of

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a geopolitically fractious
world, can we have something

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similar?

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So almost climate diplomacy and
where can we find common ground

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around standards, around
technologies, around learnings,

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and sharing that all countries
interested in, regardless of

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what geopolitical beliefs
ordispositions they have.

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Climate becomes the thing they
rally around. And potentially

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even helps them build bridges in
other areas,

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but let's start there for now.

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And in terms of climate, I mean
how is it playing out

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particularly in Europe what
needs to happen?

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Well, I mean Europe is an area
of the world where I think it's

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doing a lot of the right things
already.

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They've got a policy structure
in place, they've set goals

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they're trying to meet.

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So I see this as it comes to
Europe as an accelerator, right.

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For example, in the North Sea
where we're looking to deploy

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300 gigawatts by 2050, 150
gigawatts by 2030, those are big

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goals.

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Well, actually the COP28
commitments aligned behind that

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very nicely, for example.

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So I see it, if anything, as a
reaffirmation of what Europe

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needs to do as a kind of an
affirmation that they're on the

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right path with some
acceleration needed, of course,

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and a rallying cry, in a sense,
to get industry behind it.

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Well, that sounds surprisingly
hopeful.

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A discussion about climate.

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Well, I think that's what we've
seen.

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I mean, look, I'd almost
describe the atmosphere as one

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of stoic optimism, right, where
people understand there's

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microeconomic challenges,

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they understand that not all the
technologies are at a commercial

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scale to get us to where we need
to go, and they understand not

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all the business cases exist.

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But look, I mean every 10th of a
degree matters, right?

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So we may not achieve every
target we need to, but the

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progress is what we need to keep
celebrating.

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Well, thanks for bringing us
that bit of optimism.

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Maurice, it's been a pleasure to
speak to you.

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Thanks, Manveen.

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Good speaking to you as well.