Climate Confident - Practical Climate Solutions That Cut Emissions
Climate Confident is for business leaders, climate professionals and policymakers who need to understand what is actually cutting emissions—and what it takes to make those solutions work at scale. Each Wednesday, technology and sustainability analyst, keynote speaker and former SAP Global VP Tom Raftery speaks with the executives, engineers, scientists, founders and policymakers turning climate ambition into measurable progress. Together, they examine the technologies, business models, policies and implementation strategies reshaping energy, transport, industry, supply chains, food and finance. These are not conversations about distant targets, vague pledges or greenwash. They are candid discussions about what is working, what is failing, where the real bottlenecks lie, and how leaders can make better decisions about decarbonisation, resilience, investment and risk. You will hear: Proven approaches to reducing emissions Hard-earned lessons from real-world implementation Analysis of the markets, technologies and policies driving the transition Honest examination of costs, trade-offs, setbacks and unintended consequences Practical ideas for turning climate commitments into action New episodes are published every Wednesday at 7am CET. Subscribers also receive bonus episodes featuring highlights, analysis and emerging themes from across the series. Follow Climate Confident for practical climate solutions, informed debate and the insights you need to turn ambition into measurable progress. Guest suggestions and feedback are welcome at Tom@tomraftery.com.
Episodes
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AI data centres are creating an extraordinary new demand for electricity. The harder question is whether clean, firm power can be built quickly enough to meet it, without falling back on gas.
My guest in this episode is Matt Loszak, co-founder and CEO of Aalo Atomics, which is developing small, factory-built nuclear reactors initially for AI data centres. The bet is that nuclear can move from bespoke...
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Enhanced rock weathering looks deceptively simple: crush suitable rock, spread it on farmland and let chemistry remove CO₂. The harder question is whether you can prove that removal reliably enough to make the economics work.
I speak with Chris Zair, Director of Partnerships at UNDO, about what happens when enhanced rock weathering moves from controlled trials into real fields. For buyers, investors ...
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For years, renewable natural gas had a basic problem in heavy-duty trucking: it lacked a 15-litre engine capable of doing the work fleets expect from diesel. That barrier is disappearing. The harder question now is whether the economics and infrastructure stack up.
My guest is Scott Brinner, Executive Vice President of RNG Solutions at NoPetro Energy, who works across RNG production, fuelling and fle...
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Carbon removal is often framed as a technology problem. But what if the harder constraint is demand, and what if waiting decades to remove a tonne of CO₂ carries a climate cost of its own?
My guest is Barclay Rogers, founder and CEO of Graphyte, a durable carbon removal company using agricultural and timber residues in a process it calls Carbon Casting. He brings a practical operator’s view of ...
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Building more renewable generation is not enough if the grid cannot carry the electricity to where it is needed. Curtailment, connection queues and delayed infrastructure are turning grid capacity into a climate and competitiveness constraint.
My guest today is Niklas Persson, CEO of Grid Integration at Hitachi Energy, with nearly three decades in electrification. We look at what happens as industry,...
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Solar, batteries and EVs are moving fast enough to change the risk calculus for energy investment. The bigger mistake may now be assuming today’s system, and its customers, will still be there tomorrow.
I speak with Professor Ray Wills, Managing Director of Future Smart Strategies, who has been modelling technology adoption curves for years. We examine what accelerating clean-energy deployment ...
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Long-duration energy storage is increasingly ready to deploy. The harder problem is that electricity markets still struggle to value what duration actually provides - flexibility, reliability and power when the sun sets, the wind drops and demand peaks.
My guest is Julia Souder, CEO of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council. She works across the policy, finance and deployment questions shaping this...
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Two million hectares of avoided deforestation is not a theoretical climate benefit. It is what Priscillia Moulin says can happen when companies stop treating supply-chain risk as somebody else’s problem. ClimateEpisode291.srtSRT
Priscillia is Director of Strategy at MosaiX, working on deforestation-free commodity supply chains across palm oil and other high-risk materials. Her work sits at the ...
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At John Sisk & Son, up to 98% of company emissions sit in the supply chain. That changes the decarbonisation problem completely: the biggest levers are often not on the construction site, but in what gets bought.
I speak with Keith O’Flynn, Group Supply Chain Sustainability Manager at Sisk, about what that means in practice for one of Ireland’s largest contractors. When concrete and s...
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Soil health is starting to look less like an environmental side issue and more like infrastructure. The real question is whether regenerative agriculture can improve resilience and economics without asking farmers to absorb years of financial pain.
My guest is Tim Weaver of Holganix, working at the intersection of soil health, regenerative agriculture and measurable environmental outcomes. We look at...
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Cheap solar, batteries and EVs are no longer merely cleaner alternatives. Their falling costs are undermining fossil-fuel economics, and leaders may be misjudging the speed of that shift.
My guest is Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and a long-time IPCC contributor whose work has focused on cities, transport and automobile dependence. We examine how China’s...
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Carbon accounting can send companies straight at the wrong problem. A visible sustainability initiative may feel productive while the real emissions hotspot sits in raw materials, product design or the supply chain.
My guest is John Beath, CEO and Chief Technical Director of John Beath Environmental, whose work in lifecycle assessment helps companies test assumptions before they commit money, enginee...
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Battery storage is getting cheaper, but the data used to trade and operate it may be badly wrong. When forecasts miss, penalties stack, warranties get messy, and returns can quietly unravel.
My guest is Ash Vats of 3E, who works on battery intelligence for utility-scale assets. We look at the gap between what a battery management system reports and what the hardware can actually deliver - a gap with ...
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Heavy machinery can waste three quarters of the energy fed into it. The battery may not be the real electrification bottleneck.
In this episode, I speak with Hiten Sonpal, CEO of Rise Robotics, about a neglected part of the energy transition: the hydraulic systems inside construction, mining, and port machinery.
You’ll hear why conventional hydraulics are only around 25% efficient, how that forc...
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AI isn’t weightless. Every model, token, and workflow sits on land, water, power, heat, and governance choices.
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Sophia Mendelsohn, who leads SAP’s Global Sustainability Platform. We look at AI not as abstract software, but as physical infrastructure with real consequences for climate tech, decarbonisation, the energy transition, po...
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What if electrification is no longer just a climate solution — but an energy security strategy?
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Gavin Mooney, an independent energy transition advisor working across utilities, electrification, and energy markets. We look at Australia as a live test case for the energy transition: a country rich in coal, gas, sunshine, and wind, yet stil...
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What if AI’s biggest climate impact isn’t chatbots, but cutting real energy waste in buildings, grids, and factories?
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Philippe Rambach, Chief AI Officer at Schneider Electric, to unpack one of the sharpest tensions in climate tech today: AI is increasing electricity demand, but used well, it may also be one of the tools we need for...
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What if one of the biggest climate risks in your portfolio is hiding in plain sight — in food, land, methane, and animal-dependent industries?
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Claire Smith, founder and CEO of Beyond Investing, to unpack why climate finance cannot stop at fossil fuels. Claire has spent years building investment products that screen for animal use, climat...
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No one wants to ship water around the world. That one line says a lot about the next phase of energy storage.
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Min Tang, Director of International Business at Rongke Power, one of the world’s leading vanadium flow battery companies. We get into why long-duration storage is moving from climate tech side-story to core grid infrastructure, a...
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What if the biggest greenwashing risk isn’t bad intent, but business-as-usual marketing?
In this episode of Climate Confident, I’m joined by Helen Neal, founder of HN Communications, to dig into one of the most under-discussed risks in decarbonisation: how companies talk about sustainability when regulation is tightening, public trust is fragile, and every net zero claim is being scrutini...
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