(Bloomberg) -- The biggest challenge in the transition to a more sustainable world is finding a way to scale up and speed up actions across borders and industries, according to executives at Bloomberg New Economy at B20 in Sao Paulo.
Access to technology has to reach all the regions of the world, especially in the global south, said Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, a Mexican diplomat and chief executive officer at onepoint5, which seeks to accelerate clients’ transition to a sustainable future.
“We need to have everyone busy doing their transition plans with clear strategies, with clear frameworks on policy, with clear sources of financing,” she said during a panel discussion.
While the global energy transition offers opportunities, developing countries such as Brazil will face difficulties in competing against other countries where subsidies are being put in place to foster the green economy, said Ricardo Mussa, CEO of sugar and ethanol producer Raizen SA.
“We have to be careful because those policies drive investments to the wrong place,” Mussa said.
Renewable sources of energy that are abundant in Brazil are also key for the artificial intelligence economy, said Marc Ganzi, CEO of DigitalBridge Group. The AI economy alone presents an opportunity for $6.5 trillion in renewables investments, he added.
Progress has been made in the past 20 or 30 years and, and even though there is still “a long way” to go, there is positive news, Cantellano said. “It is very clear that the transition toward a low carbon economy can be done,” she said.
Meanwhile, transforming the global economy in the face of climate change requires “massive amounts of capital,” Hans Kobler, founder and managing partner at Energy Impact Partners, said during a separate panel discussion.
While there is a lot of capital that is willing to invest in infrastructure, the challenge is that countries across the world are trying to scale up new technologies before they are “fully de-risked,” he added.
New Economy at B20 is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
(Updates with comments from Hans Kobler in last two paragraphs.)
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