Introducing the Climate Money Watchdog and Climate & Capital Media Partnership - Peter McKillop
05/18/23 • 45 min
In this episode we welcome Peter McKillop, the founder and CEO of our new partner, Climate & Capital Media.
Peter is the founder of Climate & Capital Media. Climate & Capital Media is a mission-driven information platform exploring the business and finance of climate change.
Climate & Capital delivers original reporting, intelligence and insight from our global network of journalists, researchers, and investors with a focus on climate-related businesses, technology, and public policy, particularly for the emerging generation of economic leaders who will shape tomorrow’s global agenda.
Prior to Climate & Capital, Peter McKillop was a Managing Director at BlackRock, where he was responsible for leading the firm’s strategic communications and messaging for its iShares ETF and Indexing business. He has also held senior communication leadership positions at J.P. Morgan, KKR, UBS, and Bank of America. Before entering the financial communications field, Peter was a senior correspondent and bureau chief for Newsweek in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Our discussion ranges across the following topics, among others:
· Why it’s especially important and vital to have good oversight over the hundreds of billions of dollars of climate money about to be spent?
· Our goals for this new oversight collaboration between Climate Money Watchdog and Climate & Capital Media
· How the climate community will react to the idea of needing oversight unemployment money and the need to police itself.
· What we should do as climate money watchers when the climate deniers try to use spending failure and scandals to discredit all climate work.
· How important sources, especially inside sources within the climate effort are to finding out what is going wrong
· Why we are concerned about whistleblowers in the past who have dumped un-vetted, un-redacted into the public arena. How practices of people like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning can hurt the communities they’re trying to help.
· As a long-time journalists, what concerns us now about the state of journalism, it's sustainability, and its ability to do oversight.
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
In this episode we welcome Peter McKillop, the founder and CEO of our new partner, Climate & Capital Media.
Peter is the founder of Climate & Capital Media. Climate & Capital Media is a mission-driven information platform exploring the business and finance of climate change.
Climate & Capital delivers original reporting, intelligence and insight from our global network of journalists, researchers, and investors with a focus on climate-related businesses, technology, and public policy, particularly for the emerging generation of economic leaders who will shape tomorrow’s global agenda.
Prior to Climate & Capital, Peter McKillop was a Managing Director at BlackRock, where he was responsible for leading the firm’s strategic communications and messaging for its iShares ETF and Indexing business. He has also held senior communication leadership positions at J.P. Morgan, KKR, UBS, and Bank of America. Before entering the financial communications field, Peter was a senior correspondent and bureau chief for Newsweek in New York, Tokyo, and Hong Kong.
Our discussion ranges across the following topics, among others:
· Why it’s especially important and vital to have good oversight over the hundreds of billions of dollars of climate money about to be spent?
· Our goals for this new oversight collaboration between Climate Money Watchdog and Climate & Capital Media
· How the climate community will react to the idea of needing oversight unemployment money and the need to police itself.
· What we should do as climate money watchers when the climate deniers try to use spending failure and scandals to discredit all climate work.
· How important sources, especially inside sources within the climate effort are to finding out what is going wrong
· Why we are concerned about whistleblowers in the past who have dumped un-vetted, un-redacted into the public arena. How practices of people like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning can hurt the communities they’re trying to help.
· As a long-time journalists, what concerns us now about the state of journalism, it's sustainability, and its ability to do oversight.
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Previous Episode
Retiring 90% of our Coal Power Plants would Save Money - Michelle Solomon, Energy Innovation
Michelle Solomon is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Electricity program at Energy Innovation, working to accelerate the transition to a clean, affordable, and equitable electricity sector in the United States. We’ve invited her to talk about their recent publication of the third edition of their report - Coal Cost Crossover – which argues that over 90% of coal-fired power plants in the U.S. could be replaced by renewable energy generation at a net cost savings.
Prior to joining Energy Innovation, Michelle earned her Ph.D. in materials science and engineering at Stanford University, where she studied nanoparticles with applications in purifying chemicals for use in medicine and the environment. During graduate school, she also pursued an interest in energy policy and spent a summer working on electric vehicle policy at the California Energy Commission. After graduating, she transitioned full-time into policy as a Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. As a fellow, she had the chance to work on energy and environment policy for Senator Ed Markey, focusing on a wide range of issues spanning environmental justice to electric vehicle charging.
Michelle holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. from Stanford University in materials science and engineering. She also completed her B.S. in physics at Boston College.
Further Reading:
· Coal Cost Crossover Interactive data visualization
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Next Episode
How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air: Mark Z. Jacobson
We’re excited to welcome back Mark Z. Jacobson, who joined us last year to talk about a study he co-authored called “Low-Cost Solutions to Global Warming, Air Pollution, and Energy Insecurity for 145 Countries”. He is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy program at Stanford University, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for energy, and also the Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, 100.org and the 100% Clean, Renewable Energy movement.
We've asked Mark back to see what progress the country has made with his prediction that the US and the world can change to clean energy and meet CO2 goals by only using WWS (wind, water and solar) i.e. clean non burning energy without using coal, gas, nuclear, and carbon capture. Mark released a book in February of this year, entitled No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air. His book brings up more questions about the government and the some climate experts are promoting, such as carbon capture, instead of considering the potential of just using WWS.
Topics covered include:
- How does the time taken to construct different types of power plants effect their impact in light of the short timetable on lowering CO2 and other greenhouse gases pollution?
- How does the amount of waste heat released by fossil fuel compare to that released by renewables? For example, about 65 to 67 percent of energy in oil and coal is released as waste heat, 40 to 60 percent of natural gas energy is also waste heat, 74 percent of biomass is waste heat and 65 percent of the energy in uranium is waste heat.
- According to Jacobson, “By 2021, the cost of a system consisting of wind, solar, and batteries was already less than that consisting of natural gas. For example, even in 2019, a Florida utility replaced two natural gas plants with a combined solar-battery system because of the lower cost of the later.” How do economics affect transition to renewable energy sources?
- What are the best and quickest energy source for commercial and military planes and cargo ships?
- Is the U.S. grid ready for 100 percent clean electricity?
- What has been the reaction to Jacobson's proposed WWS solution?
Visit us at climatemoneywatchdog.org!
Climate Money Watchdog - Introducing the Climate Money Watchdog and Climate & Capital Media Partnership - Peter McKillop
Transcript
Thanks for joining us for another episode of climate money watchdog where we investigate and report on how federal dollars are being spent on mitigating climate change and protecting the environment. We're a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that does not accept advertisers or sponsors. So we can only do this work with your support. So please visit us at climate money watchdog.org To learn more about us and consider making a
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