Billionaire Tom Steyer, who rose to prominence during his short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, said the climate change crisis is far-reaching and global and that only those who are primarily responsible for the problem are now – Businesses – can solve it.
“We’re at a stage now where we have to get this done, depending on the business,” Steyer said. wealth. “The function of business is to serve the needs of society and accomplish what is needed.”
After the Democratic presidential campaign ended, Steyer returned to his roots as an investor. He co-founded Galvanize Climate Solutions with long-term investor Katie Hall.
Galvanize’s venture capital arm has invested in early-stage companies, including watershedis a carbon accounting firm that tracks the carbon emissions of companies like Spotify and Walmart. The company also invests in public companies and sustainable buildings.
In September, Galvanize, which had 59 employees, closed a US$1 billion The fund focuses on growth and equity investments. A Galvanize representative declined to say how many assets the company manages. Asked about the company’s returns so far, Steyer said it was too early to tell because the firm has not sold any of its investments.
Typically, investment firms specialize in some type of investment, such as venture capital (for new startups) or private equity (private equity), which acquires shares of existing businesses and then resells them. But Galvanize is interested in all types of investments as long as they mitigate some of the dangers of climate change, which means Steyer chose to work within that system. “We don’t have time to change American finance,” he said. “Is the U.S. financial industry perfectly prepared to deal with climate change? No. But that doesn’t matter.”
Steyer said climate change represents a major opportunity and for savvy investors, investing in green technology will be very profitable. Investing in clean technology and renewable energy may seem like easy money given the widespread negative impacts of climate change, but it’s seriously hurting some of the biggest investors. For example, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, once the gold standard among venture capital firms, invested some $630 million in green startups more than a decade ago, but ultimately either failed or took years to generate returns.
“We have to win in capitalism, not because it’s great, but because that’s where the opportunity is, that’s where the rewards are,” Steyer said.
He recalls that when he first started advocating for climate investments, the response was tepid. “I certainly went to meetings on Wall Street and talked about similar investments in 2014 or 2015,” Steyer said. “People really didn’t believe it.”
While business must play an important role in combating climate change, Steyer made it clear that the problem can only be solved with the help of governments. The public sector plays a key role in shaping policy (which he said “absolutely remains important”) and provides significant early-stage funding for research into new technologies and infrastructure. However, the private sector must ultimately bring these technologies to market.
“Businesses are getting bigger, and we need that scale,” Steyer said. “We need it to be profitable — and it’s going to be incredibly profitable. We need to make that happen, and I want to be one of the people driving that… We’re in the execution phase.”
Last year, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one of the largest spending programs ever to combat climate change.New legislation earmarks $390 billion for climate-related spending, including $14 billion Help the Environmental Protection Agency reduce greenhouse gas emissions; $12 billion Requires the Department of Energy to expand lending to the U.S. power grid; $7,500 tax credit available for certain models of electric vehicles.
“There will be some important government-funded research being done in schools, labs and research facilities across the country,” Steyer said. “But all parts of transforming it into a commercial organization with global reach will be done by private industry. That’s how it works.”
Steyer has been involved in politics for many years
Steyer has long been a big donor to climate change causes. In 2014, he founded NextGen Climate Action, a political organization that spent about $100 million during the 2014 election cycle to advocate for policies to combat climate change. His political donations have been so influential that he spent $11 million on his 2013 campaign, according to the Washington Post, in helping elect former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. It played an important role. New York Times. In that article, he was called the Democratic version of brothers Charles and David Koch, whose political contributions helped shape the Republican Party.
In 2016, Steyer continued to work hard and invested in $25 million Launching a campaign in seven battleground states to encourage young people to vote on 200 college campuses. He called it the largest youth voter outreach program ever. Steyer remains an influential donor to Democratic campaigns.According to reports, President Biden Steyer’s home in San Francisco.
By 2019, however, Steyer was no longer content to work behind the scenes of political power and decided to become a candidate himself.In July of that year he declare He’s running in the Democratic presidential primary, specifically trying to influence Democratic candidates to talk more about climate change, which “received a very cold reception” during the campaign. “A lot of times, people think debates are about positions,” Steyer said of the primaries, in which he spent at least According to Bloomberg, he has a personal fortune of $125 million. “That’s not true. The debate is about priorities. There are very few things that the president can handle, and honestly, I feel like this (climate change) has to be elevated.”
For the most part, Steyer believes he succeeded in his goal of helping Joe Biden focus more on climate change during his winning campaign. “When he (Biden) initially started, it was an irrelevant part of his campaign. But it became a core part of his campaign and a core part of his victory because I think it was his success under 35. An important segment of the population to be successful.”
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