THIS IS THE CLIMATE ECONOMY

I was honoured to have been asked to deliver remarks at the Opening Ceremony of Toronto Climate Week | TOCW by Becky Park-Romanovsky. The event was truly remarkable. A room packed in all three dimensions - from floor to ceiling and wall to wall - to hear the promise of what the future can be, and will be.

Below are the comments I delivered, entitled, This is the Climate Economy. 

THIS IS THE CLIMATE ECONOMY

I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace’s famous speech, This Is Water. He told the story of two young fish who pass an older fish. The older one says, “Morning boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on, and eventually one turns to the other and says, “What the hell is water?”

Wallace’s point was that the most obvious realities are often the hardest to see.

and that’s where we are today. Because whether you are an investor, an entrepreneur, or a policymaker…

This is water. 

In fact, this is the climate economy.

We are already swimming in it. Every investment, every procurement decision, every factory and fund is immersed in it. Every flood, every fire, the smoke, the haze. Some don’t see it yet. Others pretend it isn’t there. Some even flaunt these conditions as beneficial. But it surrounds us all the same.

I first felt it as a young marine biology student. I thought it would be the perfect pre-med major.

It was 5:40 a.m. at low tide, lying on seaweed as the sun broke over the horizon off the Atlantic. Salt on my lips. Light breaking across the water. Algae glowing red, green, blue.

I remember thinking: forget medical school. This is what I’m destined to study.

That moment lit a fire that’s never gone out.

It carried me through my decision to study and toil in the realm of sustainability and climate. It carried me into the working world, where I began to swing from job to job…or lever to lever.

Because I am a Father.  Because I am impatient. An impatient scientist. Engineer. Strategist. Always searching for the biggest lever. The one that moves the most. The one that makes the most change.

For me, that lever was business. The capital markets, actually. Not because they are perfect. But because they touch everything. Because capital and the human condition caused this crisis. And because capital and the human condition is also the pathway to prosperity — environmental, social, economic.

This is the climate economy.

And that’s where my purpose crystallized before I even left school: to leverage the capital markets to solve the world’s great challenges, climate change foremost among them. To find the places where money meets mission. Where profit meets preservation.

It is that purpose that has driven me ever since. It is why I became a hunter.

I have held positions at RBC, Centrica, PwC, Nestlé, and now my venture fund, Climate Innovation Capital, always searching for the way to bend capital toward a livable, prosperous, equitable future. A future where the human condition can be sustained.

That path made me a Gigacorn Hunter.

In 2018, I was invited to speak on a panel at the Milken Institute. The topic was climate investing.

Afterwards, I was approached by three members of the Turner family. Yes, Ted Turner’s son, daughter and grandson. They asked me: “How do we invest in solving climate change?”

Sharing my thoughts, the grandson asked, “Oh, so you’re hunting for climate unicorns?”

That set my mind to work. A unicorn, a billion-dollar company, was too narrow a definition. If a billion dollars is the target, then the ambition should match. A billion tons. A gigaton.

And so I combined them: the unicorn and the gigaton. Together they became the gigacorn, a company that removes at least a billion tons of carbon from the economy while exceeding a billion-dollar valuation.

It wasn’t just a word. It was a lens. An instrument of focus. Because once you look through it, you can see clearly.

And so, in that moment, I became a, maybe the first, self-declared Gigacorn Hunter.

Seven years later, I wrote a book: The Gigacorn Hunter. Part manifesto. Part Investment Thesis.  Part Invitation. Part story of how we get from fragile ideas to what I call the Decarbonization of Everything Economy, the DoE.

Now, let me be clear: the climate economy doesn’t come in neat gigaton slices. It’s chaotic. It’s layered.

So while we must pursue gigacorns, those rare companies that can take a gigaton off the table, we also need megacorns, tackling millions of tons. And millicorns, tackling thousands of tons. Smaller, vital players often hidden in the corners, the sub-sectors of the economy, unlocking the capacity and capability of giants.

Every solution matters. Every reduction counts.

And so my invitation is simple: hunt that which is aligned with your knowledge, your capital, your networks, your risk appetite. Hunt gigacorns. Hunt megacorns. Hunt millicorns.

Because this is the climate economy. And it needs hunters of all kinds.

Of course, not everyone sees it this way. Some mock the transformation. They stand in front of progress, building roadblocks of rhetoric and policy. These are the final throes of a system in decline.

Recently, the U.S. President told the UN, “Green is bankrupt. Climate change is the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

If that’s a con, it’s the only con in history that has lowered costs, outcompeted incumbents, and attracted trillions of dollars in investment. That’s a strange kind of fraud...one that delivers cheaper energy and better returns.

Here are the facts: utility-scale solar and wind are now the cheapest new power sources across much of the globe. Last year, clean energy investment topped a record 1.7 trillion dollars, outpacing fossil fuels for the first time in history.

So when someone says renewables are a con job, what they really mean is they’re terrified of being outcompeted.

And that’s where I want you to channel your outrage. The best revenge isn’t anger. It’s success. Success in outbuilding. Outperforming. Outcompeting those who deny the science, deny the economics, deny the physics, deny reality itself.

This is the climate economy. And it is here, whether they like it or not. 

And here’s why I believe Toronto, and Canada, is the perfect perch from which to hunt.

We have world-class R&D. Global leadership in AI. An entrepreneurial culture that is collaborative rather than cut-throat. Some of the world’s largest pension funds, banks, institutional investors. And a culture that values both innovation and stewardship.

At a time when the U.S. President is leaning out, pulling up stakes, Canada has the chance to lean in. To position ourselves as a global climate innovation hub.

But let’s be honest: there are gaps. We need greater institutional risk tolerance and risk taking.  Yes, I mean more investment in the funds and entrepreneurs capable of building the climate economy. Faster commercialization pathways. Better alignment between policy and finance.

If we can close those gaps, Toronto can become the launchpad for the next generation of climate solutions.

So, here is my challenge to you.

Remember: gigacorns rarely start as gigacorns. They begin small. Fragile. They begin as millicorns. As megacorns. They grow into something larger, supported by capital, by policy, by people, by you.

So decide.
  Decide what you will hunt.

Decide the role you will play. 

Investor. Innovator. Procurer.

The UN tells us the math: by 2050, humanity must pull 60 gigatons a year out of the economy to preserve a livable future. My team at ClimateIC, right here in Toronto, believes we’ve already found and invested in the first two. That leaves fifty-eight. Fifty-eight more transformations waiting to be discovered, funded, and scaled. We can’t hunt them alone. So I invite you: come hunt with us. Bring your networks.  Your capital.  Your imagination.  The world needs every one of those fifty-eight.

Because this is the climate economy.

It surrounds us. Sustains us. Challenges us.

The only choice we have is whether we notice it…and whether we swim with the current of change, or against it.

So let’s hunt. Let’s build. Let’s succeed. Let’s make Toronto the place the world says: That is where they find, fund and grow Gigacorns.

Thank you.