An honour to be on a panel with parliamentarians from New Zealand, India and Tibet and stellar academics sharing thoughts on the geopolitics of critical minerals in the transition landscape. Many thanks to @redlanternanalytica for the kind invitation to speak at the Siang Dialogue 2.0

Transition and climate does not seem apparently political however geopolitics infects and inflects its contours.

It’s a time of a meltdown where policy shock and awe is taking place. The normal has been upended and hence the powers to be are unable to push back. A response and a resistance also takes time to marshal.

A world making phase is here, and creative destruction is occurring.

I have been blessed to have great Farsi/Ajmi fare in Special Ostadi in Bur Dubai, Kateh in Kuwait City and Shabestan in Masqat and love the simplicity of the pulav. Bombay has its Britannia for Parsi fare, Jimmy Boy close by also matches its heritage credo with equal gusto.

Mommy Joon’s Kaboodeh, or commonly known as the Chello Kebob was near to the greatness of a Special Ostadi where the Ajam, was felt each morsel of pulav.

Carbon markets are networks of financing for capital to find environmental assets for protection. Usually conservation is the goal, and the embedded community an afterthought. They operate at a global scale for planetary ends, while capital is exchanged for offsets.

It is a good asset class for patient capital and philanthropic projects. It is only one type of instrument in the climate finance bucket.

Dean Kishore, Dr Raja Mohan, Taimur Baig and Suhasini Haidar speaking at the Asia Society India Panel at the Bombay coastal cultural nerve centre NCPA on the current turbulence. As Professor Kishore says we are in the midst of major changes. The notion of the west needs to be fragmented between a declining Europe and a dynamic US. Markets will temper President Trump’s actions. Trump can out bully Bibi, and achieve a ceasefire in a day.

Dr Raja Mohan spoke about the dismantling of the WTO order.

Taimur Baig draws historical parallels regarding tariffs between now and the 1890s especially the McKinley era. The Dream of Trump draws on it.

Europe aces on healthcare welfare and scientific innovation. ASML and Carl Zeiss is at the heart of semiconductor technology. World has an amazing ability to absorb shocks.

The larger questions regarding risk are beyond reporting templates.

The spaces of policy dialogue are not in the classroom, but in an experimental theatre. A truly Singapore in Mumbai evening 🇸🇬🇮🇳

A lot of talk regarding the USAID funding pause as good people, projects and communities will face a hit. Having worked on an USAID project for a year, the people who work on these projects are on a regional scale and some of the cutting edge action research is performed.

As we reflect on alternatives to the grant based approach, this is a revealing nugget on the western imperatives of aid from Amitav Ghosh’s stunning work, Wild Fictions.

The architecture of climate action is biased towards the global, while impact of climate change is rooted in the local context. The way the architecture is configured, determines whether the local deserves to be on the priority of climate action.

Carbon offsets are useful as commodification is a precursor to modular architecture, which are traded as stocks in a bourse. Low friction is imperative for scale. Carbon markets work well at high volumes, thus national and regional scale architectures will thrive. Carbon offset projects such as NbS which have scale will attract large capital investments rather than a cook stove project.

For local impact, we need a different offset type, which social impact bonds need to meet carbon offsets. There is scope for financial inclusion there.