The Angry Clean Energy Guy: Recent Episodes
Assaad W. Razzouk
There is so much to be angry about, if you are a clean energy guy. Every day, so many things that happen around the world make me angry when I look at them with lenses colored by the climate change chaos unfolding everywhere around us. And I am especially angry because I know we can solve the climate change crisis if we were only trying.Each week, I will share with you a few topics that struck me and that I was very angry about – and this will generally have to do with climate change, solar or wind power, plastic pollution, deforestation and reforestation, environmental degradation, wildlife, the oceans and other related topics.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on data centers and why they're actually the ultimate dual-purpose warriors of the modern era. They are not just the vital digital substations acting as the nodes connecting the world. When coupled with on-site batteries, they operate as physical grid substations that actively stabilize the network and allow clean, green electrons to flow more freely and in far greater quantities than ever before.
The episode also addresses the hysteria surrounding their land and water consumption, explaining how they use next to no water compared to other massive industrial and agricultural users; why they will unlock the ability to power ultra-low-cost desalination plants; and how they hardly use any land at all. It's a 25-minute reality check on why data centers are accelerating, rather than hindering, the massive clean energy transformation underway around the world.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the Electro-Shield being built at a historic pace across the countries of the Global South: The structural decarbonization of an economy by bringing power production home through domestic solar, wind, and battery storage systems to insulate grids from foreign market shocks.
For decades, the global establishment treated climate policy like a slow, voluntary environmental project, assuming nations would transition out of altruism or consensus treaties signed in quiet conference rooms. In 2026, that fiction has evaporated. The true driver of global macroeconomics and geopolitics today is raw, basic political survival. The war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz delivered a brutal lesson to every energy-importing leader on Earth: fossil fuel reliance is no longer just an environmental disaster; it is an immediate national security threat that brings protesters to the streets.
This transformation is being accelerated by a massive new demand engine: the global race for artificial intelligence and compute sovereignty. In this episode, The Angry Clean Energy Guy breaks down how the Electro-Shield is being deployed in real-time across key Asian markets—including Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and more.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy then examines the structural divergence between Petro-states, where power is about extracting volatile molecules and capturing the wealth created through elite networks, and emerging Electro-states, which democratize energy and treat it as technology. As fixed hardware permanently outpaces extractive commodities, wires will continue to irreversibly chew pipelines.
Forget everything you’ve been told about the painfully slow pace of climate action. Instead, a quiet rebellion is taking root. The Angry Clean Energy Guy breaks down the potentially monumental shift from April’s alternative climate summit held in Santa Marta, Colombia, where more than 50 countries bypassed the stagnant UN COP illusion to form a real coalition of the willing, one dedicated to actually dismantling the fossil fuel empire from the ground up.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy also looks at the impressive numbers hitting the grid: clean power has now officially covered 100% of global electricity demand growth, while battery storage has become fastest-growing energy tech in human history and a key enabler of the transformation in heavy transport, where electric trucks are rapidly wiping out diesel's market share.
Finally, the Angry Clean Energy Guy shines a light on the dirty shadow war Big Tech is waging against carbon accounting watchdogs. As tech giants scramble to feed the massive AI boom, they are panic-signing fossil gas deals behind closed doors while aggressively bullying climate organizations to accept cheap, fake paper certificates. It’s a raw, uncompromised look at an economic war that fossil fuels are losing on the ground, no matter what the establishment wants you to believe.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the historic turning point of 2025: the definitive end of the fossil fuel growth era. With clean power effectively meeting every single unit of new global electricity demand, the legacy energy system is actively hollowing out from within. This episode breaks down the spectacular rise of “Anytime Solar” driven by battery costs cratering 45% in just one year, and how this transition permanently dismantles the strategic chokeholds of regions like the Strait of Hormuz. Escaping the dying fossil fuel cartel for cheap, abundant renewables is no longer simply a climate goal, but the ultimate national security imperative.
Hostages to the Barrel: Fossil Fuel Dependency is a National Security Suicide Note.
We’ve reached Episode 100 of the Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast, and frankly, there is nothing to celebrate. We are 14 days into a planetary-scale disaster as Israeli and American attacks on Iran trigger a massive disruption of the Persian Gulf energy supply. From hundreds of millions of Indians unable to cook dinner to airlines canceling thousands of flights and governments in Thailand and Vietnam begging people to work from home to save fuel, the "choke point" is no longer a theoretical risk; it is our reality. The Angry Clean Energy Guy breaks down the sheer lunacy of our continued addiction to fossil fuels to show that if your country's energy depends on fossil fuels, you are not a sovereign state; you are a hostage. Expect an acceleration, around the world, of efforts to build the renewable-powered, high-compute future we actually need.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on "Sovereign AI" and the recipe with three ingredients each country needs to achieve it. Plus a special focus on the state of Sovereign AI in South-East Asia and why these nations (though not only these nations - indeed most nations) need a radical pivot: A stand-alone Minister of AI; a large build-out of data centers at home; and critically, a tsunami of solar, wind and storage to power this new brain with the only fuel that makes economic and security sense. The risk if they don't? Becoming vassal states to the algorithm.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on data centers in space: the good, the bad and the ugly - and why they are inevitable by 2030
Real climate action isn't happening at the UN Climate talks—it’s happening everywhere else. So, are the UN climate summits a waste of time? What is their actual purpose? Should they be reformed or simply shut down? The Angry Clean Energy Guy breaks down what you need to know about the UN's COP conferences and highlights examples of the massive, inexorable climate momentum building outside the negotiating halls.
The Achilles heel of AI and AGI is electricity. By 2030, new data centers require $6.7 trillion worldwide, based on current market data, to keep pace with the demand for compute power. Not much, however, will be built without a massive scale-up of solar, wind and batteries. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why we should expect an acceleration of renewables deployment around the world, as everyone eventually wakes up to the fact that nuclear will take 20 years to deliver, gas turbines are virtually unavailable through 2030, and new coal is finished everywhere except in China and India.
Forget "energy transition". We are in the midst of an energy TRANSFORMATION, completely upending how we live on a global basis. We are on our way, for the first time in the history of humanity, into the era of over-abundant clean energy to deliver much cleaner air and oceans, healthier lives, so much less waste and so much more efficiency than the fossil fuel era. Off you go go into the dustbin of history, age of oil
The Angry Clean Energy Guy reveals how the onslaught of attacks on clean energy in the United States is fueled by vindictiveness and greed, not facts, and exposes the groups behind the hostility.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the space race of this century: becoming a solar superpower. Humanity is moving into an unprecedented era of energy super-abundance which is going to be all about harnessing terawatts of solar energy; TW-scale solar manufacturing and TWh-scale battery manufacturing. After all, total energy consumption globally today is about 16TW, while right above our heads the Sun is delivering 173,000 TW of energy to Earth continuously, over 10,000 times greater than what we are currently using. And it's all there for the taking by those countries that achieve solar superpower status - with almost any and all countries in contention. The global order is on its way to be potentially dramatically re-shuffled.
On Monday, 28 April 2025, a major power blackout occurred across the Iberian Peninsula affecting Portugal and Spain. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the history of blackouts since the 1960's; why we won't know the cause for months or even years; the solutions we are literally drowning in; and how the ultimate cure is to go bigger and faster on solar and batteries.
We are in the midst of an organised assault on climate action, climate science, the environment, diversity, equity and inclusion and more generally, on decency, equality and morality. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the "passwords" which may help to understand the "why"; and how this assault is destined to fail.
Recently, President Trump apparently sought to stop wind power expansion in the US and withdrew from the Paris agreement, in a barrage of orders aimed at boosting fossil fuels and reverse policies that address climate change.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why it's very good news that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris agreement (don't worry about it); and why the global energy transition is not something President Trump or anyone else is going to stop.
On Monday 2 December 2024, the mother of all climate lawsuits began at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Unprecedented, it's also the largest ever case seen by the world court, with a record number of 97 States and 11 international organizations speaking in the oral proceedings. The ICJ is being asked to provide clarity on international law with respect to climate change.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why what the ICJ says could change the world.
You may have heard that a "nuclear renaissance" is gathering pace, driven most recently by something called “small modular reactors” or SMRs. Apparently, SMRs are going to be ubiquitous everywhere and are going to play a key part in decarbonization. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why this isn't going to happen; and why all this talk about SMRs (and it's mostly talk) pushes back the era of energy abundance which we are on the cusp of, by diverting capital which would have been much better spent on a faster deployment of renewable energy: solar, wind and batteries.
On 14 June 2024, a major oil spill blackened Singapore's coastline, after yet another shipping accident which punctured the oil tank of a fuel ship and spilled at least 400 tons of oil, with large quantities washing ashore. This episode of the Angry Clean Energy Guy is the beginning of a ten-part series on the history of fossil fuels in South-East Asia, and how the region will shake-off this last remnant of its colonial history - fossil fuels - to get rid of oil spills once and for all; achieve energy independence; strengthen national security; improve the energy efficiency of buildings, vehicles, appliances, and electronics; and protect and enhance the health of all citizens in this process.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the depravity at the heart of climate finance: those who set the house on fire (rich nations) are lining up outside to sell fire extinguishers, or loan them with interest, to the occupants who need them (poorer nations) - and in the process often saddling these occupants with debts, or worse, taking whatever furniture, savings or cash they have left.
Chinese innovation on steroids: The Angry Clean Energy Guy on some pretty shockingly amazing announcements in the battery energy storage world from China, and on decisive progress on recycling batteries from the United States. Together, these guarantee that oil is on its way out of the transportation sector; that oil and gas are on their way out of electricity generation, forever, much earlier than people think; and that we will shrink the environmental footprint of energy - by exiting oil and gas and coal - by somewhere between 90% and 99%.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on two recent, and historic, renewable energy milestones many thought impossible. First, solar, wind and hydro power exceeded 100% of California's electricity demand on an almost daily basis over a sustained period of several weeks. Second, also in California, battery storage became for the first time ever the largest source of supply in the California grid. The evidence is incontrovertible: not only can we power entire countries with almost 100% renewable energy, but we will also get there faster than most people think.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the fraud that is plastic recycling, perpetrated by Big Oil and their enablers; and on the emerging evidence that the health dangers of plastic - obfuscated for 50 years - could be life-threatening , including substantially raised risks of strokes, heart attacks and other nasty invasions of our bodies by Big Oil.
Disinformation, misinformation, deception and propaganda by Big Oil is rife. The number of oil trolls on my social media feeds - and those of so many other climate activists - has seen a remarkable increase, some collecting 1,000+. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the "Top 10 Disinformation Tag Lines" peddled by Big Oil trolls and bots, aided and abetted by some of the world's largest public relations firms and assorted politicians, lawyers and consultants on their payroll.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the need to tackle the fantastic quantities of waste and pollution from the healthcare sector - 5 to 7% of global emissions and 5th largest polluter if we thought of it as a country - and how the doctors, demigods everywhere, are in the process of being nudged to evolve to get to zero-waste and zero-emissions medicine.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the sheer quantity of drivel we're bring bombarded with about gas, (such as the world needing more affordable energy (read: gas); or how gas is part of a pragmatic approach to the energy transition; or using the words "low-carbon" in the context of energy systems); and how in reality, it's all deliberate propaganda orchestrated by dark organizations such as the "International Gas Union". Their global playbook of deception to lock-in fossil gas (and make a couple of bucks while setting fire to the world) has been exposed through their own incompetence: it was available on the International Gas Union's own website, by mistake, until the documents were removed six months later.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why our fossil fuel addiction consumes at least 535 times more mining than the renewables economy displacing it - and how we have already all the minerals we need to decisively transition to clean energy lifestyles and economies
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why South East Asia's clean energy future is here already, today: it's all happening, all one needs is to see it is take a quick tour of the behind-the-scenes, massive, renewable energy surge in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why we have all the money in the world to pay for climate action right now (and where that money is), so why the hell are we not getting on with it.
We need to talk about COP28, the 28th installment of the United Nations Climate Talks, which will take place in Dubai, UAE at the end of this year. For the first time ever, the CEO of an oil company - literally the constituency that must stop all new oil & gas and phase-down existing oil & gas - has been appointed as the President of a COP - literally the global forum which is supposed to phase-down the production of oil & gas. Does this mean that Big Oil has finally succeeded in completing its hijacking of the annual meeting of 198 countries to act on climate? Should the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat be going nuts about it and acting (fat chance, probably)? Or does fighting climate change require all hands on deck, as some prominent voices have argued? Listen, weep or cheer, and make up your own mind. Then do something about it.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy’s third episode in a mini-series of podcasts showcasing some of the remarkable environmental progress in Asia, today featuring the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam (after China was featured in Episode 70 and Indonesia was featured in Episode 71). Here's one factoid from this episode: the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines, an independent body set-up under the constitution to investigate allegations of human rights violations against Filipinos, released a 160-page National Inquiry on Climate Change with explosive findings against Big Oil.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy's second episode in a mini-series of podcasts showcasing some of the remarkable environmental progress in Asia, today featuring Indonesia (after China was featured in Episode 70). The next podcasts will feature Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea and India. Here are two factoids from this episode: Indonesia's fight against plastic waste is much more advanced than that of rich and industrialized Western countries; while its renewable energy industry is about to take off.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy's first episode in a series of podcasts showcasing some of the remarkable environmental progress in Asia, starting with China. The next podcasts will feature Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and India. Here's one factoid from this episode: there were 80,000 environmental lawsuits brought by Chinese prosecutors in 2020 alone, all of which were to enforce environmental regulations.
The noise from oil trolls, oil bots and Big Oil astroturfing has become deafening. Their aim is to overwhelm the climate movement - and thoroughly confuse the public - by posting vast amounts of misleading information and spreading crazy conspiracy theories as well as general nonsense, in very large volumes. They are a naked attempt at pushing Big Oil's agenda of perpetuating fossil fuels irrespective of the very high risk they pose to society's very survival. The Angry Clean Energy on what they are; what to do about them in an environment where Big Oil's obscene 2022 "profits" will likely power them into hysteria mode; and how this is consistent with Big Oil recently dropping any pretense about their goal of stalling - and then reversing - the energy transition.
The global legal construct around climate change was born in 1992, when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was negotiated at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, more commonly known as the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro. In this podcast, we take a tour through a short history of UN climate talks (now in their 27th year at what's called a "Conference of the Parties", in short a COP) - whereby the Angry Clean Energy Guy concludes that climate action is happening everywhere, except at the UN climate talks
Sustainable aviation fuels are a fraud. Study after study say that no matter how you look at the data, their production will fail to meet aviation needs no matter how much money is thrown at the problem. Not only does the industry have to be created from scratch, creating enough "sustainable" fuels to replace jet fuel by 2050 assumes we can convert all of the planet's grasslands to biofuel crops. Worse, they give airlines, aircraft manufacturers and oil & gas companies public relations cover to continue to do incredibly little to tackle their emissions and pollution, while increasing the use of jet fuel as the growth of air travel continues unabated.
Climate optimism is in short supply, so this is a podcast about ten BIG, BIG reasons to be optimistic that we are pushing back against global warming. I put this podcast together because climate anxiety is real: distress related to worries about climate impacts is widespread. We feel powerless in the face of crisis of epic proportion manifesting itself through biblical floods, epic droughts, powerful heatwaves and cascading consequences on our daily lives and livelihoods. Indeed this is so far the decade of words such as “since records began”, “for the first time in human history”, “millions affected”, “breaking multiple records”, “has no parallel in recorded history” and possibly the word of the decade, “unprecedented” - all the more reason to focus on why we can be optimistic about the future, at least in a relative sense (it could have been worse and warming of 2°C for example is a lot better than warming of 2.5°C!). Yes, some warming is already baked-in, probably 2°C or more, but the judgment is out on where we will end up and YOU can do something about it.
In the midst of a global climate crisis touching everyone and everything, there are new, sophisticated and dangerous forms of greenwashing making the rounds, courtesy of the oil & gas industry and their stooges. The Angry Clean Energy Guy exposes two particularly pernicious ones: oil companies "announcing" renewable energy projects to fund more oil & gas; and "carbon management", aka carbon capture and storage + direct air capture, an elaborate and insidious excuse to keep pumping more oil and gas and worsen the climate crisis, while almost always using other people's money: yours.
Many people struggle with climate anxiety - the feeling of distress, uncertainty and loss of control which is a natural reaction to the magnitude of the climate crisis and how apparently little our individual actions matter in fighting it. Climate anxiety highlights the enormous importance of the following question: what can an individual do that would actually make a real, tangible, measurable difference in the fight against climate change? We need action and a sense of achievement when facing seemingly intractable environmental problems. In this podcast, the Angry Clean Energy Guy shares five ways anyone can use to take climate action. These include announcing his new book, "Saving the Planet Without the Bullshit", in bookstores near you in September; as well as the launch of a platform he co-founded, Reneum.com, built to allow anyone to take tangible, transparent and measurable climate action by participating in a movement to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy worldwide.
There is something sordid taking place out there. Over the past few weeks, shareholders – that is, investors, asset management firms, banks and pension funds - blocked proposals to accelerate carbon emission reductions at oil & gas producers including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Shell and TotalEnergies. But, wait: aren’t we in a climate emergency with clarion calls by the IPCC and the IEA to have zero new oil, gas and coal developments anywhere in order for the world to have a chance to reach net zero by 2050? The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why a far harsher light should be shone on what institutional investors are actually doing, rather than wasting time listening to their rivers of words about climate “action”, “responsible” investing and ESG “policies”.
While India was roasting under a record heatwave; the Amazon was recording record after record of deforestation destruction; dust storms were sending thousands to hospital in Iraq; Ethiopia was facing its worst drought in at least 40 years; and global average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were reaching their highest level on record for any calendar month in April, consultants McKinsey were busy preparing yet another report obfuscating the reasons why climate finance flows continue to be appallingly inadequate.
Perhaps the McKinsey consultants should consider stopping to "research" and publish reports that waste hundreds of people's time and are filled with platitudes, and consider instead quitting to act on climate instead. Enough with the time wasting: we should be developing and implementing tools which allow citizens to take direct climate action at scale.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why your "luxury cruise" is just a floating garbage trash can; how the shipping industry in its entirety has gone rogue in terms of climate action, ocean pollution and public health impact; and why the International Maritime Organization needs to be either fundamentally restructured or closed: it's not fit for purpose and it's doing everything in its power to do absolutely nothing at all.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the top 5 climate action myths busted by the Ukraine war: the different ways governments and big business had justified, sometime for decades, why they couldn't take this or that climate action, then suddenly took them in days in a different context. And on why we should label “non-sense” anything we read about why we should not immediately break our addiction to oil and gas and coal and instead – as argued by fossil fuel stooges – we should ramp up destructive fracking or build LNG terminals
Greenwashing - drowning consumers with vague or false claims to deceive them into believing that a business' products or image are green - has gone viral: Most businesses are at it, irrespective of their sectors, some more vociferously than others. Here are the Angry Clean Energy Guy's "Greenwashing Top 15:" the Top 15 ways we are being deceived - on a daily basis if not more frequently - by Big Oil, businesses, the financial sector, politicians and many others.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why the blockchain is possibly one of the most powerful tools for citizen climate action, in particular for those angry about how little their governments have been doing for 30 years about climate change. We (citizens!) can leverage its power and potential to drive hundreds of billions more to accelerate the renewable energy revolution, fight deforestation, clean up the oceans, push back on the plastic epidemic and so on - all because it allows us to do what we want to, as opposed to what big governments, politicians, banks, the capital markets and corporations are prioritizing and doing.
We need to talk about corporate evil: companies knowingly doing harm. In this episode, the Angry Clean Energy Guy features a massive company many around the world don't know about which is overtly trying to greenwash its deeds by using children, while simultaneously – and boldly - trying to fry the planet.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on a little known, secretive, stealthy tool undermining climate action, the innocuously called the Energy Charter Treaty, - such an unthreatening name, on a par with "natural" gas or "plastic", don't you think? – threatening to ensure global heating exceeds 2 degrees Celsius by driving tens, or even hundreds, of billions of dollar more to Big Oil, Big Gas and Big Coal
"COP26," the 26th year pretty much all the countries in the world convened in an annual conference to talk about what to do about the climate catastrophe, will result - just like its preceding 25 editions - in talk, then in some more talk. That's because real climate action doesn't happen at these annual climate meetings: It takes place instead elsewhere, at individual country level, when local action results in stopping deforestation; in accelerating renewable energy deployment and electrifying everything; and in stopping any new oil, gas or coal projects.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on pretty much everything you really need to know about nuclear energy. That's for example the fact that conventional nuclear energy is not only finished, but has also become a massive distraction in our climate emergency, diverting precious dollars away from sun, wind and water. Or the fact that nuclear fusion is worthy of investing enormously more money and careers in, even if we won't have a result for 50 or 100 years (who knows), because limitless, clean and around around-the-clock power will most likely be our most amazing scientific achievement ever, and because it's already made more progress than expected
The IPCC released a hugely important scientific report this week. However, in this episode, I would like to talk about biodiversity instead, and in particular, biodiversity loss in the oceans. On climate change, it's crystal clear that what we desperately need is action because the evidence is all around us. However, we rarely talk about action to counter biodiversity loss. Yet, the mutually reinforcing nature of climate change and biodiversity loss means that satisfactorily resolving either issue requires consideration of the other, and action: In the real world, the multiple impacts of climate change everywhere increasingly add to the enormous human pressure on biodiversity loss, which to put it bluntly, is about how we’re wiping out, or certainly trying to wipe out, pretty much everything on Earth, from trees to fish to insects to birds to mammals and more. Much more.
I’ve had it with the bashing of bitcoin, the blockchain and crypto miners for their energy usage. This is all, in one word, noise and should be ignored. 250 million people already think bitcoin is useful. In addition, the world consumes approximately 160,000 TWh / year of energy and wastes, along the way, at least one-third. What bitcoin consumes is 0.07% of that energy and 0.002% of what we waste. Most importantly, the disruption of information technology created by bits is an excellent preview of what electrons are in the process of doing, once increasingly massive amounts of excess energy compared to existing electricity demand, at near-zero marginal cost, are delivered: Entirely new business models and applications will emerge, alongside the electrification of everything. We can already see the harbinger of the electron abundance era in the increasing electrification of cars, scooters and buses as well as heating for example, and this will extend to multiple other sectors such water treatment, green cement and green steel, waste processing and many others. Bitcoin miners are just the vanguard.
This Episode is a slightly longer version of a TEDx Talk I gave at Singapore's National Gallery on 28 April 2021 about ESG.
What Bill Gates calls the “Green Premium”, the extra cost we have to pay because most zero-carbon products currently appear more expensive than their fossil-fuel equivalents, doesn’t in fact exist. We only have a “green premium” because we have been "cooking the books," mis-stating the earnings of corporations worldwide by letting them get away with not pricing their environmental destruction through their income statements. As a result, based on mis-stated and incorrect corporate profits, we have diverted trillions over the past 40 years which could have moved us to a safer planet much faster, but instead were spent digging and burning more coal, oil, and gas, producing more plastic and paying everybody handsomely along the way. The "cooking the books" pandemic needs to be stopped right now.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on pretty much everything you need to know about ESG, starting with the need to be very suspicious whenever you see an ESG label on an investment product. ESG has become a huge business, with one dollar out of every 3 professionally managed dollars in the US for example labelled “ESG” (and an even greater proportion in Europe). The trend is clear and pretty much 100% of funds under management will have an ESG label soon. But in order for this to have a material impact in the fight for clean air, against climate change and against environmental destruction, we need global ESG standards and we need to divorce the “E" from the "S" and the "G". Then, we need to price the "E": Climate risk isn't just a disclosure issue and should be priced into earnings, as should other environmental risks. Then we would have a chance to change the world.
If you want to get elected, requirement number one is to come up with a meaningless tagline while pretending everything is going pear-shaped, e.g. “Take Back Control” or “Make America Great Again.” Adopting tactics from that playbook, today's requirement number one to continue to pollute at will (while everything is actually going pear-shaped) is to announce “NET ZERO by [insert date, the more distant the better],” then to keep polluting at will, hiding behind voluntary carbon offsets. So I am just going to come out and say it: Voluntary carbon markets should be cancelled. All of them. Corporations buying carbon offsets when not required by law, in other words voluntary carbon credits, are greenwashing. Some know it, some don’t – it doesn’t matter in any case: They need to stop. Individuals buying carbon offsets on a voluntary basis (to offset their flights or the pollution from their gas-guzzling SUVs) are mostly being abused.
Over the past year, multiple oil and gas companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in planting trees, or threatening to do so, to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. There are, however, several fundamental problems with what they are doing, or probably more accurately, pretending to do. First, most are planting trees to earn carbon offsets, as if they are at Church, confessed, received a penance – the carbon offsets – and were imparted absolution. But even if they could be absolved by planting trees, which they can’t, surely they can’t then go and sell that absolution to consumers, which is exactly what some of them are doing. Shell for example has an entire effort trying to get petrol car drivers to pay a premium at the pump to buy carbon offsets from Shell, at a profit. Second, generating the carbon offsets from planting trees, even if this was real (it's not, in most cases) does not mean they can keep burning down the house. They should be decreasing their emissions, not greenwashing. Finally, not much attention is being paid to what trees are being planted, how and where. The reality is that planting trees is largely unnecessary. Far more critical is to stop global deforestation and to re-grow the global forest by preparing the ground, understanding our limitations and getting out of the way.
We need to talk about lawyers and about law firms.
One of the strongest weapons in the fight to do nothing at all about climate change is the anti-climate-action litigation carried out by most, if not all, of the largest law firms in the world.
Law firms, quietly and below the radar, do three big, bad things: By a ratio of 10 to 1, they love to work on cases that make climate change worse; they adore helping the fossil fuel industry, petrochemical companies and plastic polluters with whatever they may require; and they are enthusiastic lobbyists for the destruction of the planet.
They need to be called out. New graduates should avoid the worst of them (that's 80% of top law firms). Lawyers employed there should push to change them. Corporations, governments, service providers, investors, banks, insurance companies, development finance institutions and any corporate making a net-zero commitment should scrutinize their credentials, hire those that are helping in the fight against climate change and force a change in the appalling behaviors of most of that industry, the law firms destroying the world.
With an estimated $30 trillion in assets under management, the insurance industry is a huge (but mostly invisible) force in influencing the direction of the global economy. Yet insurance companies are doing incredibly little to fight climate change - and get away with it: Out of the largest 30 insurers in the world, 29 pretty much do not take the Paris Climate Agreement at all into account and continue to back new oil, gas and coal as well as collect vast premiums from existing oil, gas and coal projects. Collectively, their Paris Climate Agreement-related policies, where these exist at all, amount to not much more than a giant pile of green-washing guff.
If you listen to banks and their explanations of they are doing about climate change, you might get the impression that most "get it" and are fighting it shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of humanity. In fact, banks are funding enough carbon-intensive projects and companies to guarantee a 4°C rise or above in global warming, with their eyes wide open and in full cognizance of the facts.
This episode on banks is the first in a series by The Angry Clean Energy Guy focused on the key actors in our global financial system - from banks to insurance companies, accountants, lawyers, rating agencies and institutional investors - and exposing who is really fighting climate change and who is pretending to while in reality putting short-term profit over people, health and planet.
"Fresh air" is a myth. In reality, 90% of us (worldwide) are breathing dirty air on a permanent basis. Because we can't see the pollution in our air, we don't tend to think about it enough. But our air is weakening all of us and killing 7 million a year, as well as placing an undue burden on health systems in every country. This has to stop and it can: No more petrol or diesel cars, trucks, buses, two- and three-wheelers, or trains - all of which can be replaced today by clean alternatives. Soon, no more petrol or diesel ships and planes too. Let's get going.
The latest, newest attacks against clean energy, namely “Oh my God, what are we going to do with all those solar panels and wind turbines and batteries at the end of their lives” and "Oh my God, what about the mining practices employed to get the materials necessary for clean energy ” are, in one word, bollocks.
In Episode 42 of The Angry Clean Energy Guy, you will hear how the take-back and treatment of solar panels, inverters and batteries is already mandatory in the EU and is going global; how technologies to recycle solar panels are today everywhere around us and some reach an astonishing 96% recycling efficiency; how you can already recycle 85 to 90% of the total mass of wind turbines; and how 95% of lithium-ion battery components are being turned into new batteries or used in other industries. Most importantly perhaps, you can also see why the DNA of the clean energy industry is about building a circular economy around its products, in contrast to the DNA of Big Oil, which is about destroying, free of charge to them, our habitat.
October, 2020 marked the end of an era: The world’s largest solar and wind power generator, the US utility NextEra, surpassed ExxonMobil - literally the embodiment of Big Oil's recklessness and once the most valuable company on earth - in stock market worth: It took a pandemic to show the markets that the time for clean energy and clean air is right now, and here we are.
Major announcements around new renewable energy plans were being made in the same period that NextEra was eclipsing ExxonMobil: Apparently, oil companies including Total, Shell and BP and oil traders including Vitol, Trafigura and Mercuria are intending to unleash hundreds of billions of dollars in new investments in renewable energy and battery storage.
In this episode, The Angry Clean Energy Guy attempts to weigh the depth, breadth and sustainability of the wall of money about to pour into clean energy and to assess the implications on Big Oil's future and on renewable energy markets around the world.
Indonesia, population 270m and basking in abundant sunshine most of the year while stretched across the Equator, has less installed solar power capacity (198MW) than Finland (215MW), an Arctic country with just 5.5m people.
That's one of the reasons South East Asia remains the global laggard on renewable energy while at the same time threatening to set the world on fire through the world's last great expansion in coal and gas infrastructure.
But the resistance of powerful vested interests in ASEAN to renewable energy, transport sector electrification, fighting the plastic pandemic and investing less in fossil fuels can’t last: The clean energy revolution is poised to steamroll fossil fuels in South East Asia too, as the cost of renewables continues to plunge and the climate emergency accelerates.
I am sharing good news on this podcast: Natural gas is done in 10 years. Certainly in Europe. Give it another 5 years on top and it will also be done in Asia and in the US too. It’s going the same way as coal. Why? In short, because the information fog is lifting after decades of obfuscation: We now know it's about as dirty as coal. Whoever named it "Natural Gas" instead of "Highly Explosive Climate Change Accelerating Fossil Fuel Gas" deserves a branding award.
The plastic industry says it’s a "hero" of the coronavirus pandemic. What is driving this propaganda? Single-use plastic is a big chunk of the future demand for oil forecast by OPEC or by the International Energy Agency and their other friends trying to cook the books. So if you take out single-use plastic, future demand for oil and gas will decline immediately and so will the projected revenues of that entire industry. That, in turn, has all sorts of consequences for the cost of capital of oil and gas companies, which ultimately means that they will be able to do no more new oil and gas exploration. Furthermore, they would have to close down, gradually, what they're doing now. That's why the plastic industry is now selling itself as a "hero" of the fight against the coronavirus - and nothing could be further from the truth.
Recently, an open letter from dozens of investors, business leaders, researchers and climate policy advocates accused the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based intergovernmental organization mistakenly labelled as "authoritative", of marginalizing key climate goals in its research. They were being too polite: The IEA is a very dangerous organization and should simply be closed, because it's a fossil fuel relic incapable of reform. I'm afraid this podcast is entirely dedicated to explaining why.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the incredible resilience of renewable energy in the midst of a pandemic, and why that means its rise will accelerate further post COVID-19; and on the incredible non-resilience of the airline industry, its irresponsible and reckless mis-management and why the earthquake in its midst means it has already seen its carbon emissions peak
In our arsenal of anti-virus weapons, a powerful force is emerging. It’s one of the most hygienic alternatives for the prevention of the virus and it’s changing the world before our eyes. This not-so-secret weapon is cheap and promotes cleaner air. It's healthy. It allows us to move about. It contributes powerfully to the fight against climate change, yet effortlessly delivers social distancing. It's also allowing us to re-imagine our "after Coronavirus" world. In this Episode 35, The Angry Clean Energy Guy sets out future trends that you can already bank on across the real estate, transportation, consumer, healthcare and energy sectors, all of which are driven by the humble bicycle.
"If you want a proper adaptation strategy to the Coronavirus, then you must finally properly tackle climate change. There. I said it."
In this Episode 34, The Angry Clean Energy Guy describes what the "exit strategy" is for the global Coronavirus lockdown and how this exit strategy is so similar to the one from climate change; and then he describes some of the future trends that we can already see shaping our society post-Coronavirus and what these mean, especially from the perspective of climate change.
Twenty five per cent of the western world could be unemployed by the end of March: COVID19 shows that society failed to provide, to most, secure jobs and pensions, income support, skills training, clean air, clean water and healthy food. We must change the way we work, move, eat and live and do capitalism differently, by focusing on people not corporations. So as airlines, hotels, the retail industry, banks and other financial institutions and astonishingly, even the oil & gas industry come asking for bailouts, let's move them from their 19th century design to a 21st century one: Focus them on Green New Deals
What do Amazon, Microsoft, Finnair, Teck Frontier, Llyods Bank, Equinor and Singapore have in common? Buried in the news so far in 2020, there's been a deluge of good climate change developments around the world, signifying a clear uptick in momentum in the fight against global heating. In Episode 32, The Angry Clean Energy Guy, less angry for once, goes through these positive developments and continues to build on the case for climate optimism made in Episode 27.
There is so much anti-electric vehicles propaganda around, I’ve started hearing kids repeating it recently: “Oh, EVs aren’t clean because of how batteries are made" and "oh, we don’t know what to do with batteries when discarded.” In this Episode 31, The Angry Clean Energy Guy sets out why this is propaganda; where it's coming from; why it's flat out wrong; and what to do about it
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on all you need to know (sort of) about Hydrogen: Green vs. Black vs. Grey vs. Blue, the myths peddled by Big Oil and whether hydrogen is the solution to our de-carbonization imperative
The Angry Clean Energy Guy's definitive guide (sort of) of what works, and what doesn’t, in fighting climate change: How much can you fly? Should you eat any meat? What about plastic? What’s the best approach to transport? Should you buy any carbon offsets? How much should you recycle?
Big Data, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence are being harnessed by Big Tech in an unholy alliance with Big Oil aimed at increasing oil & gas production, climate emergency be damned. This Episode tells you much more about that, as well as about how we can derail this alliance.
Hero of the Week: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, for the EU Green Deal she tabled in record time.
Villain of the Week: Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, for dereliction of duty while his country burns.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy's Top 10 Reasons to be a Climate Optimist
Anytime you get depressed by the climate catastrophe all around us, come back here, to this Episode, to refresh, then go back out and fight: The case for climate optimism is strong.
A cataclysmic event (well, sort of) happened recently: The largest multi-lateral lender in the world, the European Investment Bank, said no to lending more money to oil, gas and coal. Why cataclysmic? It’s the gas bit. Because we’ve been told, time and time again, by oil companies that “natural gas” is clean, or is a bridge to a cleaner future. Now the biggest multilateral bank in the world says: It’s not true. The Angry Clean Energy Guy on why this decision is historic in the context of global climate finance flows; what these are; who's playing their part and who's not.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on insects, what they do for us, why we should love them and how new shock findings confirm that we are in the middle of an insect Armageddon of planetary ecological breakdown proportions. Hero of the Week: James Shaw, Minister of Climate Change of New Zealand, for working on a new regime that would require companies to assess and report their climate-related financial risks. Villains of the Week: 7 banks with no moral compass that want to finance a new $2.2 billion coal plant in Vietnam to fry us all.
On how in 1982, Exxon Mobil published a beautiful 46 page report and estimated with stunning accuracy that the atmosphere would contain 415 parts per million of carbon dioxide this year. Then: They lied; They lobbied; They corrupted; They profited. And so we ended up, in 2019, with a climate emergency. Hero of the Week: 1,000 Australian engineers rebelling and putting engineering firms under pressure to abandon fossil fuel projects. Villain of the Week: Shell Oil, for trying to rip off British drivers at the pump
On (almost) everything you need to know about the dangerous global boom taking place in the petrochemicals industry, the plastic myths and cons it peddles and (some of) what we should do about it. Hero of the Week: Ban ki-Moon for acting on climate in South Korea. Villain of the Week: Liv Lønnum, Deputy Minister in the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, for being a pretend conservationist and a hard-core apologist for Big Oil, aiding and abetting the destruction of the Arctic
On the Saudi Aramco IPO, what it is, its risks, valuation, flawed rationale and why the IPO of the third largest polluter in history, in the era of fighting climate change, is pure hubris and greed. Hero of the Week: Every person that went out for a climate strike worldwide, notwithstanding the deafening silence in Asia. Villain of the Week: Norway's Equinor, for lying to the British public about natural gas' "low carbon footprint" (not!) and getting caught by UK regulators
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on a major recent development and a precursor of what’s coming for Big Oil everywhere, namely Shell and Exxon having their social license to operate dirty and dangerous gas fields revoked in Groningen in the Netherlands; and on China’s Belt and Road initiative and the bad rap it gets for being environmentally unfriendly. Villain of the Week: Maxime Bernier, leader of the People Party of Canada. Hero of the Week (and probably of every week): Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who dramatically raising global awareness of the risks posed by climate change and holding politicians to account for their appalling lack of action
The Angry Clean Energy Guy will be back on 27 September
https://theangrycleanenergyguy.com/
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the other planetary emergency coming to us via Brazil, the decimation of 500,000,000 bees through the use of pesticides illegal elsewhere; on how Costa Rica offers hope to the burning Amazon Rainforest; on using plastic waste to pay for bus fares in Indonesia and Ecuador; and on a huge health warning sign I wrote that should be slapped on the side of petrol- and diesel-powered buses everywhere in the world. Hero of the Week: Lilly (11), an international environmental champion. Villain of the Week: Japan's public finance institutions, for financing $17bn of coal power in India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh - countries with some of the dirtiest air anywhere- that’s up to 40 times dirtier than coal Japan builds at home.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy is back on 13 September
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the climate change lawsuits tsunami spreading around the world to hold polluters to account; and on plastic particles falling out of the sky with snow in the Arctic and plastic raining on the Rocky Mountains and on the Pyrenees mountains - and what to do about it. Hero of the Week: Medi Bastoni, a 43-year-old father of 4, walking 700km backwards from his home to Jakarta to shine the spotlight on Indonesia's deforestation. Villain of the Week: Jennifer Wilcox, for spreading Big Oil propaganda via a Ted Talk on "a new way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere" which is pie in the sky and just an excuse to use more dirty natural gas
The Angry Clean Energy Guy will be back on 30 August
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on amazing reforestation initiatives in Pakistan, India, China, Ethiopia, Europe as well as the Great Green Wall from Senegal to Djibouti, the amazing lack of reforestation in the US and Russia and the criminal destruction of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest; on the climate movement's propensity to attack each other instead of staying focused on its civilization-saving agenda and as a case study of this drama, the wasteful attacks against what we know works: 100% renewable energy everywhere. Winner of the Week, Professor Marc Jacobson of Stanford University, who should win a Nobel Prize for his work on 100% renewables; Villain of the Week: President Bolsonaro of Brazil, for the crimes against humanity committed in the Amazon
The Angry Clean Energy Guy podcast will be back on 16 August
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the inexorable and intolerable continuing rise of emissions 27 years after the Earth Summit of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro; and on the RE 100, the best global initiative to fight back against catastrophic climate change by bringing together major businesses driving the world to 100% renewable electricity. Winner of the Week: Adidas, for challenging the (very irresponsible) fashion industry with a huge move to use only recyclable plastic and eliminate all plastic fiber in its 900 million items by 2024. Villain of the Week: Uber, for blatantly taking advantage of its London customers (and soon all others) by charging them a "clean air fee" (which is anything but) for every ride.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on a virus infecting sustainability: Big Oil are deliberately poisoning what sustainability means, diluting its impact and reach, and they are doing that in plain sight, borrowing the language and applying it to terrible initiatives and companies all designed to propagate our use of harmful fossil fuels and indeed increase it, rather than decrease it, when everyone knows we need to power the world with renewables as well as pretty much phase out our use of oil, gas and coal by 2050 – to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Winner of the week: Asset managers Sarasin, for divesting from Shell while not mincing words. Villain of the week, Cargill, named “Worst Company in the World” by NGO Mighty Earth
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the weirdest, strangest and most violent climate chaos apparent everywhere in June in China, India, Pakistan, the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan, the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland - seemingly with not a single news outlet connecting the dots. Winner of the week: Insurers Chubb for being the first US insurer to have the common sense and the guts to exit coal; Villain of the week: BP, sustainability's cancer (together with its other Big Oil friends), taking advantage of good causes to sell more dirty gas by investing in Calysta, the California biotech firm
The Angry Clean Energy Guy names and shames top fashion brands and describes why the fashion and garments industry is a horror show from a climate change and environmental perspective. Villain of the week: Shell Oil, who think they are smarter than everyone else, now greenwashing by pretending to sell "responsible" dirty gas cargoes, as if that could even be a thing. Hero of the week: America's leading medical groups who have declared a public health emergency over climate change.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the (very) dirty secret of luxury cruises which are in fact just punctured garbage bins on water; on New York State's aggressive 100% renewable energy mandate and on Canada's parliament voting that we are in a climate emergency one day then finding it perfectly normal to approve a massive pipeline for filthy tar sands oil the very next day
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the impact of climate change so far in June (and just June) on India, Pakistan, China, Finland, Russia, Australia and the US - and how these major climate impacts are seemingly broadly ignored by the media even though they dwarf in importance what counts as news these days; on the $200 billion value destruction at GE, directly related to how much its management mis-judged the competitiveness of renewables; and on the 200,000 pieces of microplastics each one of us is eating and drinking and breathing each year. Hero of the week: The oceans. Villain of the week: Every single coffee shop in New York
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on what the climate movement must learn (but hasn't, yet) from the fight against HIV /AIDS: The battle against Big Pharma was won in a way that offers important lessons for the fight against Big Coal, Big Oil and Big Gas. Hero of the week: Dr. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Villain of the week: Asia Pulp and Paper, the Indonesian conglomerate.
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on electric bicycles; palm oil, deforestation, haze and climate change; “natural” gas and why the re-branding of methane gas into “natural” gas can’t hide the fact that methane gas is CO2 on steroids. Hero of the week: Jerry Taylor, who spent most of his professional life arguing against climate action, then changed his mind. Villain of the week: ABC’s World News Tonight program, for spending spent more time covering the birth of a royal baby in the week after he was born than it covered climate change during the all of 2018
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on dolphins dying en masse in Peru because of offshore oil & gas exploration techniques and in France because of industrial fishing; on why green bonds do more harm than goods; on lyin' coal companies and the forked tongues at BP Oil; and on electric buses and why they should be deployed everywhere right now
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the human race reaching the highest levels of planet-warming gases in our atmosphere in human history; on an Exxon scientific paper from 1982 accurately predicting we would be there in 2019; on how much cash, lungs and lives we are granting Big Oil free of charge to destroy the planet; and on the Bintang supermarket in Ubud, Bali
On a super-important report on our biodiversity from IPBES, Amsterdam and cars, Beijing and electric scooters, Michael O'Leary, Ryanair as the new coal and the aviation industry
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on China's Belt and Road Initiative; Fund managers and oil companies; Jakarta; Cyclone Kenneth in Mozambique; Deforestation and Indian lawyer and environmentalist Afroz Shah
On microplastics, geoengineering, chevron, occidental, BHP, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Danone, Unilever, generating electricity from wood and climate change protests
The Angry Clean Energy Guy on the Bank of England, the world's capital markets; plant-based diets; stopping flying; overthrowing capitalism; mainstream media and the BBC; and Shell Oil
On nuclear power, the Great Barrier Reef, Sky News Australia, Dolphins and Overfishing, and Shell Oil.
On wind power, electric cars, the "Impossible Burger," beef and some of the corporations wrecking the planet.
Each week, I will share with you a few topics that struck me and that I was very angry about. This week, it's about plastic pollution, cyclones, climate change and some of the corporations wrecking the planet.