Notes from the speech – ‘Drill Baby Drill’ is the message from President Trump’s opening address after inauguration.

Big Oil is back, and the Inflation Reduction Act is dead, and the EV mandate is killed. This is the tectonic shift in climate policy from today. A lot of thinking needed to pivot the climate geographies in the Trump Era.

For the sustainability folks, DEI is dead. EVs also get a jolt as ICEV manufacturing makes a comeback in the United States for jobs. Migration is big on the agenda, as Mexico and Panama were at the receiving end of some harsh words.

The Gulf states have the most to cheer, and petroleum jobs will be back on the market again. Decarbonisation is headed for a screeching halt.

US as a superpower is clear with ambitions for Mars. The 27 minutes were clean, a statement of strength and signals a return to great power politics. These are times of a great pivot especially for sustainability professionals who only thought in frameworks. The real ESG, now officially dead where the G was geopolitics. Raw, brute power has no parallels.

The carbon frameworks’ data mapping impulse is reminiscent of the colonial origins of knowledge extraction. ESG and sustainability data at the organizational scale are blood tests equivalent to the organization’s human health. The stress on climate action is on building a baseline rather than immediate attention on the frontlines of extreme events such as the Kelantan Flooding. The key facet of the post-Paris Climate Action dispensation has been the decoupling of local and regional public health imperatives with climate measures. It has curiously been about risk in the financial sense, and how it impacts corporate value creation. The community element needs to be reinfused and brought back to the conversation. There is an inherent Eurocentric politics that is embedded in the way frameworks are written. The climate frameworks are cleverly wrapped up as politically neutral. Which they are not.

Penang Kopio in a Tiong Bahru Bakery Mug, in my apartment in Mumbai. Thinking Straits Settlements imaginaries in an Arab Bombay.

At Balwas Restaurant in Marine Lines

Serendipitously met a bunch of Omanis in a south Bombay restaurant. The lovely gentleman spoke Arabic and served me Gahwa. Such an honor.

A young man studied in the same university my father taught. The conversation taught me about how intertwined Bombay and Muscat are.

A good way to mark the 5th Ascension Day of HM The Sultan.

Irrespective of the roll back on DEI and ESG related measures, companies who care for their people will do so, irrespective of the political climate as treating your people who are core to your operations is good for your business.

The wheat from the proverbial chaff is being separated is a good idea. Reporting and impact performance should never be conflated as correlation is not causation.

I have eaten at Anjappar only in the diaspora; Oman and Singapore and it is one of the best exports from Chennai.

Having Anjappar in Bangalore is special as it is near the Tamil Nadu border and a strong Tamil influence on the city.

Airports are really more than ‘non places’ (auge 1995), they are most of the most interesting places where humanity converges. I was fortunate to study airport work for more than a year.

The greatest weakness in the climate/transition finance paradigm is the non-communication of the ‘additionality’ of the social and community value of adaptation. The clear avoidance of local politics does not help as elections in conventional democracies operate on a limited spatiotemporal scale.

Low carbon should not entail energy poverty for the global south. There are parts of Asia and Africa that view the transition as a green tape stifling aspirations.

This year has been a year of incredible personal growth, through learning via the PhD and travel in Malaysia and Singapore. I traveled to Penang, Malacca, Ipoh and Seremban this year, video blogged for the first time and image made majorly for my blog. I also traveled to Singapore thrice including an unforgettable experience of a Coldplay Concert with the talented Hanna Sundahl !

I presented my PhD work at a YSI workshop at Universiti Malaya in September, and did research on EVs in Malaysia. I was blessed to guest lecture a masters class on migration governance in December. As a part of research , I went to a flurry of climate conferences in KL for ‘event ethnography’. I spoke at the 6th ASEAN Integration Forum on a Responsible Capitalism Panel organised by IKMAS UKM.

I spent the entire year in Kuala Lumpur, and learnt a massive amount about the rich mosaic that is Malaysia. It is more than the KLCC, Bukit Bintang and TRX. I went into the plantations in Bestari Jaya, which were a lesson in climate racial capitalism. As a researcher in SE Asian Studies, I am aghast at lack of focus on the region in India. I was blessed to meet incredible scholars from the world over in Malaysia and Singapore this year.

I did some M&A transaction advisory work with good people and a landmark study on platform work as part of my independent consulting practice. But this year was a time steeped in the life of the mind. This is a privilege that I do not take lightly.

I end my year with a major anthem press book chapter publication on the Gulf coming out next year. I also had abstract acceptance to three academic conferences in Singapore, DC and Bologna in 2025.

I was interviewed by New York Times for the tragic Kuwait housing fire in July, and was generously quoted in the story. I also participated in a couple of webinars by Red Lantern Analytica this year on the diaspora, a topic close to my heart as a migration scholar on the Gulf and SE Asia.

For folks who cancelled me from projects that I deserve to be onboard, I have news- I am just starting up again after a tough decade. Watch this space !

The coming year, I pray for peace and good health. There is no substitute for healing and health.