Energy Transition with Natalie Blyth, Global Head of Sustainable Finance & Transition

Let's Talk Energy — Episode 50 TBC Wednesday, 21 October 2026 SPEAKERS NB Noah Brenner — Host NBL Natalie Blyth — Global Head of Sustainable Finance & Transition, HSBC COLD OPEN QUOTE (as supplied with source transcript) Natalie Blyth: “You're not just taking a technology for a technology's sake, and sort of saying, ‘Oh, technology is great; it works.’ Is there a demand for it? Who are the customers? Is it scalable? Has it got a role to play in that whole ecosystem's transition? And then you sift through and you see which ones are going to be the sort of winners, and off we go.” [00:00] [00:28] NB This is Let's Talk Energy, your go-to podcast for smart energy insights. I'm Noah Brenner, joining you today from the sidelines of Rystad Energy's 2026 EMEA Summit in London. What's the state of the energy transition, and where does it go next? The whole idea of an energy transition has become the topic of debate, with some arguing the world is simply adding more forms of energy and not moving away from any, as concerns about energy security and affordability take priority. But while governments have been rethinking their support for technologies like green hydrogen or carbon capture and storage; those technologies that can stand on their own economics, like wind, solar, and batteries, have accelerated despite or perhaps because of the energy shocks caused by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. So, to take us beyond the catchphrases and give us an inside look at how investors are approaching the energy transition today, I'm joined by Natalie Blyth, global head of sustainable finance and transition at HSBC. Natalie, welcome to the program. [01:32] NBL Thank you, Noah. I really am pleased to be here. I found it super fascinating the energy with Yarin talking about the energy system and the five forces at work. I love that kickoff to the session. [01:45] NB Well, I think that's a great start to our conversation. So let's talk energy. Well, I want to just start out. Let's ground the conversation a bit with what your role is at HSBC and maybe a little bit of your personal journey to getting there. [01:58] NBL Thanks, Noah. Pretty unconventional route, actually. I started off as a biochemist, loving systems. Ended up doing law after that, with the idea of doing patent law. Loved what the bankers were doing when I did my commercial seat. So I then actually hopped over to banking. I've been a banker for over 30 years now, and then the threads have been sort of bringing me closer and closer to my sort of ikigai around sustainability, and one of the quite formative roles I had in banking, apart from M&A junkie, is very much the running the trade finance business about 10 years ago for six years, which is a big deal at HSBC. We're number one by a factor of two, and the role that trade has in society the role that HSBC has in trade being that absolute leader, and then the role that trade had within HSBC pulling those threads together and started on the sustainability journey for real. Had been discussing palm oil with the likes of Unilever and others decades ago, but sustainable supply chains started to develop those products and propositions, and then this newly created role of leading the sort of commercialisation of sustainability. So if you think about it, we're at the center of a mega transition and needing to sort of support all our clients navigate this effectively and come out winners in a rewired new world order. Yeah. [03:25] NB Well, I want to come back to some elements of that your experience in trade finance a little later on in the program. But first, I think it would be helpful to hear. I mean, so HSBC has three drivers, kind of your transition approach, your transition strategy. I think these are going to come up quite a bit in the conversation, and so if you could just briefly lay those out for our audience to give them a bit of grounding in how you're thinking about some of these key issues. [03:48] NBL Sure, I mean it's a strategy we've had going for a little while, and then we revised it and refreshed it about a year ago. But the purpose of it is to put nothing less than to put HSBC at the center of the next decades of sort of growth and transition as we navigate this rewiring, and the three drivers. Driver one is to make sure that we are leading on some of these critical transition ecosystems. They're really fast growing. So to put that into perspective, we looked at 20, shrank them to 10, and then consolidated to about four. So clean power is one of them. Electrification is another, and then the digital infrastructure, data centers, AI is the third one. Those three really move the needle for humanity and the transition. Driver two, and you got to think of these three as Venn diagrams overlapping, is we've been a bank for 160 odd years, so we bank a lot of the hard-to-abate sectors. So lean in, look at and work with all our clients, meet them where they are, and then help them transition to net zero. And then driver three is be nothing less than the bank of choice, the kingmaker for the climate and deep tech startups, and you can see that these are all reinforcing each other. They're interwoven, and so to take those climate tech companies, we need to scale them up. We need to de-risk them. We need to finance them. So we need to find them customers, and those are the clients in drivers one and two. In fact, they could actually become a unicorn in driver one themselves. So that's the strategy. You only get about halfway there on your own. Okay. So we need partners, and I love the partnership that we have with Rystad. [04:00] [05:30] NB Excellent. Well, we're obviously very happy to hear that ourselves. But let's pick up that thread around electrification to start with. I remember I think you had posted a video after London Climate Week, I believe. You know, a big takeaway was the need to electrify everything. But I guess what I'm wondering, we're in this sort of I've heard it described as a demand supercycle when it comes to the demand for electricity, given the pressures of AI and electrification coming together at once. Can we electrify everything at the same point as we're trying to meet this with demand growing so quickly, are we able to actually do it? [06:07] NBL No, you're absolutely right. So electrification is still the right direction of travel. It's still what we need to achieve. But what has changed is that tremendous demand, in particular coming through from the supercycle in data centers and AI. I think the demand coming through from that subsector alone is double, even more than double by 2030 what it was only a few months ago. I think you're talking about 945 terawatt hours that are going to be needed. I mean, this is just huge. But what we have to do is, in a responsible way still electrify what we can, recognizing that the demand is also changing. We've got to do both in parallel. Not easy. [06:53] NB No, not by a long shot. Let's talk about what makes that perhaps even more difficult. I mean, where do you see the bottlenecks besides simply the sheer magnitude of the issue, where do you see the bottlenecks to getting the power to the customers that are able to use it? I mean, is it? We hear a lot about grid investments that are needed. We hear a lot about just simply generation that's needed. We hear a lot about kind of the interfaces in between all of that stuff. Like, where do you see the pinch point? I guess, and maybe how do we start to think about resolving it? [07:22] NBL Yeah, and I think going back to looking and thinking at everything at a systems level and an ecosystems level, this actually came through very clearly in the recent New York Climate Week and shortly before that, the Hong Kong Green Week. All the talk was about systems, systems, systems, and here on electrification, where are the bottlenecks? It's not ambition. It really isn't. It's not the capital, even. Okay. But it is the deployment of it, and you've already put your finger on some of them. It's sort of the grid. So if you think about it's the sort of the generation. It's the storage. It's the transmission. It's the distribution. All of these, what seem to be sort of relatively boring areas of deep infrastructure for the system, need to be invested in and upgraded. And you have different levels of challenges depending on which region you're in, actually. So some emerging markets, a bit like the mobile telephones and the traditional telephones, they could end up leapfrogging and not going through the sort of the old traditional creaking systems that some of the advanced economies actually need to engage. But storage is pretty key. Those grids. Think of the amount of cabling that is required. When we map a system, we map all those subcomponents and look at the clients that we need to sort of bring together and find, you know, get them financed and get them customers. Yeah. [08:00] [08:52] NB Well, and perhaps there's reason for optimism if we are able to leapfrog some of these developing economies into a cleaner system. Maybe we're able to even accelerate things faster than perhaps we might otherwise. So [09:03] NBL yeah, and I think we're actually seeing that happen already. I mean, if you look at the sort of you're aware of the physics and the inefficiencies of burnings. [09:13] NB I'm not good at the physics, but I am aware of it. [09:13] NBL But then the economics of the renewables technologies coming through, and the scale manufacturing bringing those cost prices down on inverters, on batteries, on solar, on wind, and so on. I mean, over a few years, you're talking like 90% reduction in sort of costs, and then even in the closer term, the last couple of years, 40%, and you expected again. So this means it's very accessible. Some of the Pakistan is one that is used frequently. Can't quite remember the exact stats, but they are putting up. It's the cleanest, fastest, cheapest way to get new power in, for sure, and it is happening. [09:52] NB Well, I want to take a step back and talk a little bit about the role of finance in the transition, perhaps more broadly. And you know, there have been a lot of initiatives, a lot of ideas about how finance can play a role in both accelerating, but also kind of solidifying the transition. And some things have worked as planned, perhaps, and maybe some things haven't. And I guess I'm wondering what is it that maybe we've learned about what does work, what doesn't, what can finance accomplish, and what maybe should we leave to other parts of the industry? I guess. [10:23] NBL Yeah, I think what we are seeing here is the conversation has matured quite a bit, actually. [10:30] NBL And you're seeing the sort of commercialisation and the commercial outcomes become much more sort of central to the strategy and the sustainability and transition component of corporate strategies and investor strategy becoming core, and I'd say in the last 18 months I've really seen that happen, and some of our pulse surveys have also showed that. So our clients are now saying, I mean, some of these stats are quite incredible. We are talking 99, 95, 90% of over 1,600 corporates and over 500 institutional clients in over 12 markets saying that sustainability and transition is now essential for competitive advantage. It's essential for sort of long-term profitable growth, and it's now getting embedded as a core part of the strategy. So when it makes commercial sense, it flows and it happens. You're not just taking a technology for technology's sake and sort of saying, "Oh, technology is great; it works." Is there a demand for it? Who are the customers? Is it scalable? Is it has it got a role to play in that whole ecosystem, sort of transition, and then you sort of sift through and you see which ones are going to be the sort of winners, and off we go. [11:50] NB Well, I mean, besides kind of the economic realities, the economic approach to the transition policy obviously plays a really important role, and we have seen countries rethink their transition policies. I mean, I'm I'm from the U.S. and obviously the U.S. has rethought its policy quite a bit. But even here in Europe, you know, they're trying to understand what's worked, what doesn't. And so, I guess what I'm wondering is, how do you think about how has that impacted the pace of the transition? But how do you also think about managing that sort of policy risk as we do see the world understand, you know, priorities and fiscal realities. I suppose. Yeah, [12:00] [12:29] NBL I mean, going back to actually when I ran trade, and what I would call, if you think about it, through certain of the U.S. leadership changes that took place in that period, so we had Trump round one, which was sort of interesting. So we very quickly, and we had already been doing it to a certain extent, navigating real uncertainty and sort of volatility. And if you look at trade over the decades, you're always navigating something new, some uncertainty, some policy. So supply chains had become the just-in-time one, and now we're looking at the just-in-case one. So a big rewiring and evolution, much more sort of resilience to navigate those sort of policies. In some sectors, the policies do lag where the technologies are. So you and I talked earlier about cement. Yeah, you know, cement suddenly is sort of absolutely core to me. You can't build anything, whether it's residential buildings, data centers, whatever it is, without cement. [13:33] NB You got me excited about cement. [13:34] NBL Cement is really exciting and at the center of all these transitions that we're doing, and some of the innovation that they have had has meant that you can produce low-carbon cement at the moment at a beneficial cost to conventional production, conventional cement production. But the legislation lags, so there's very tight legislation, and rightly so, around where you can use what types of cement, and when you've got new cement coming through, and in New York Climate Week, we convened the industry through a client of ours, Cemex, an absolutely fantastic event, and you really got into the details, and you understood that they can produce these great cement applications, but they can't actually use them because the legislation doesn't permit it today, and yet they're probably even better quality than conventional. Yeah. So legislation often lags what is a commercial sort of reality across multiple sectors. But commercial is commercial and trade is like water; it finds a way. It always flows, and then it sort of erodes and finds the most sort of efficient and creates the most efficient path. So I'm optimistic about it. [14:46] NB Excellent. Well, we've talked a bit about policy. We've talked a little bit about how ideas around finance and its role in the transition have perhaps changed. I guess let's talk maybe a little bit about where the rubber meets the road here, which is in you know has had these changes changed what makes for a bankable project from your perspective. Is you know if you were been if you had been investing three or four years ago alongside a company or providing financial support, is what you had wanted to see in that business different today than it might have been back then? [15:18] NBL I think it is different, and I think again, we probably don't look at a sort of a project on a one-off basis. Can we get this one through? But is it repeatable? Is it scalable? You slice and dice all the risk components, but you've really got to sort of zoom in on for that particular situation what is the risk that really matters. And again, frequently coming down to sort of commercial reality. I have an ambition and a dream, and I've had it for years actually, which is to use blockchain, and then to crowd in all the different types of capital, and line them up against who can actually take the risk and understand the risk the better. Who is the most comfortable with the tech risk? Who is the most comfortable with the long duration component of the risk? That's not often or always the best place for a commercial bank to play because of the of the way capital is treated. But you can get long term patient capital that loves this stuff. The geo the sort of the country risk. Who's best place to understand and take that country risk? If you could slice and dice all the risks and use blockchain as the underlying immutable sort of technology, you could do well. Actually, the bank can take the first three to five years, but then this pension fund can take the next slice. And you know what? These people really get this technology, so they can take the technology risk. So we're not there, but I do think that could unleash and unlock and turn the tabs off. [16:00] [16:49] NB Well, I want to apply that kind of risk framework or that thinking to a couple of industries, more specifically. One of which being renewable power, going to be key if we're going to electrify everything. Renewables are going to be a core part of that, and so I guess how are you thinking about what you would need to see in a what's a bankable renewables project look like today, maybe relative to what it looked like in the past? [17:11] NBL Yeah. Now, what I've got whizzing through my head are examples that have been really good, and examples that have struggled. And then I'm sort of fishing through one. I want to say give us [17:20] NB one of each. [17:21] NBL These particularly struggled. I won't. I won't name names. But experienced management teams and really orchestrating key skill sets. So the people component of it. And in the day where people are talking about people are going to be made redundant, left, right, and center. I tell you, people are really important to get some of these through, the whole ecosystem viability and the commercial viability of these sort of projects is really important as well. The just the nature of the of the sort of the legals and the contracts crowding in often you are crowding in 50 odd banks, yeah, and you're orchestrating all of these people. They each have their sort of team of lawyers and so on and so forth. The offtake agreements. It's can you see through really tightly to the cash flow? What is the sort of the real detailed granular detail of the sort of the viability of that. Some of them can be a little bit more sort of flaky. Others can be proper hardcore. But you've got to get into the weeds and the details. So the commercials, the free cash flow, the security of the offtake and permitting. I mean the list. I could go on, so we should be careful. But permitting is really critical, actually. [18:43] NB Oh yeah, and politically difficult compromises sometimes to be made there. [18:48] NBL Exactly, and we're seeing in some regions on data centers, real community sort of push pushbacks and moratoriums on so on. You know, we've had a really great sort of geothermal deal in the states recently, and you know you've got to get through all the permitting, and you've got to have the offtake and everything just tickety boo. But we've got the expertise to navigate this. Yeah. [19:14] NB Well, I mean, you've talked about I mean, as we're talking, you know, renewable generation, geothermal as well. I mean, these are oftentimes technologies that are quite able to stand economically on their own, but I wanted to talk about a couple that maybe continue to need government support, but that have been seen as very crucial to actually meeting the goals that we have for emissions, and those would be things like green hydrogen and as well carbon capture and storage. And I guess how has what's your outlook for those two industries in terms of bankability? Has it changed? And maybe what needs to happen, or what would be helpful to see in order to I guess maybe regain some momentum in those specific industries if you agree that more momentum is needed? [19:59] NBL Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought these two up actually because they have struggled, and even our own analysis has changed. You know, you asked, has the outlook sort of changed for them? I think there was the sort of, ooh, this is these are both really cool. They've got real roles to play, but in reality, just back to the recent question, have we been able to sort of get repeat use cases that are sort of commercially viable, they've struggled, they continue to struggle, and there's not the lack of ambition. I mean, we've actually done we've done deals in hydrogen with electric hydrogen and infinium linking hydrogen through to sort of e-fuels as well. [20:00] [20:42] NBL That's right. So we've been doing a lot of work there. CCUS, we've recently done a deal with the Port of Rotterdam. So you can you can see where they can succeed, and then certainly on CCUS, you've got to look at the whole ecosystem. There's no point in sucking themselves out of an industry where actually it's probably quite low intensity in the output coming out, you want something with high intensity so it's efficient to pull it out, the carbon out. Then who's going to have the infrastructure to sort of transport it? Yep, you need all that system to transport it. Then you've got to sort of sequester it. So really, the thinking has evolved such that needs to be primarily done, and it needs to be shared infrastructure, so that no one project, because the economics don't work. So certainly in cement, that industry it's not really viable to do it on the current basis, but if you could get some really concentrated stuff to sort of extract the carbon, and then carbon dioxide, and then if you can get the infrastructure already built in that's shared to transport it and sequester it, then maybe. [21:58] NB Well, I think that cement example is a great transition to my next question, which was you know particularly early on in as we started talking about the transition, there was this idea that you know we needed to bring all companies with us, hard to abate industries, so cement, steel, fossil fuels. Everyone was going to begin to clean up, hit you know eventually, hopefully hit net zero. Are we still seeing opportunities? Are we still seeing appetite within those industries to decarbonize? I think you touched on this a little earlier in one of your answers. But are you also still seeing opportunities to invest in the decarbonization of these types of companies? [22:37] NBL A big yes to that. This is this is actually huge for us. It's that driver too, and in reality, the great transition is won or lost in these hard-to-abate industries. So it's not a case of just leave them and move on to some sort of new world. We have to bring these new industries, and it is possible. So another deal that we did was the SSAB, which is a Swedish steel company introducing the electric arc furnace. But the impact that has been absolute, and it's a 2.3 billion euro deal amongst many banks. We were one, but that reduced the carbon footprint 90% of that actual facility, and of the whole of Sweden, 7%. The whole, the entire country. Yeah. So these things can be done, but you know, how many have we sort of have we lifted and cookie cutted that and replicated? No, not at the pace that I would like to see. You know, I'd like to see. Right, we've done it here. Here's a list of all the other sort of sites that we could do it at. Let's go and show them how it's done. So take up has been not as fast as I would like, but I'm an impatient person. But it's absolutely possible, and it is where this transition net zero is going to be won or lost, quite frankly. So it's really important. [24:00] [24:04] NB Well, I want to come back. You mentioned at the top of the program your background in trade and in trade finance, and one of the bigger shifts that we've seen has been increasing protectionism, use of tariffs, and all kinds of these sort of trade bond barriers or whatever. But I guess I'm wondering how do you see that kind of mindset or that sort of maybe closing of global trade or at least tightening impacting the transition? Does it has it made it slower and more expensive, or is that maybe an oversimplification? [24:39] NBL Certainly, the transition and trade are completely inseparable. So, if you think about critical minerals, if you think about the inverters, the solar panels, blah blah blah, everything that goes into that whole ecosystem, and the trade that needs to take place there, they are totally inseparable. I think the trade system has always come up against, you know, blips and volatility. So they're quite used to navigating what I call the unknown. In fact, when I ran trade, we have a we had a three peak challenge strategy, and the third one was navigating the unknown. And I remember when I launched that strategy, and I could see the faces of the people in the front row going, and then somebody putting their hand up saying, "Can you explain that to us?" And I sort of said, "Not really, but I think we're going to feel it really soon." And then since then, it has just been a sequence of navigating the unknown. [25:35] NB Well, I'd like to use that context, I guess, as a backdrop to talk a little bit about the China outbound facility, and I mean, I guess one of the things I'm wondering. So the focus of that fund is expanding Chinese clean tech abroad, and so how does how do you think about that and the outlook for that, given that we are seeing trade perhaps more trade friction. Yeah, has that made it more difficult or? [26:04] NBL Well, it's interesting actually because why did we launch this facility? [26:10] NB Give some background on the facility. Yeah, sorry. Tell us a little bit about the facility itself as well. [26:14] NBL So really, remember we've got these three drivers as our strategy. Driver one is to really accelerate these critical ecosystems, and clean power is one of those ecosystems. And we had a look, and we do feel responsible to accelerate and be central to making this transition to net zero happen. We're absolutely committed to it, and we are making it happen. But we need to accelerate stuff. So if you strip back and take an ecosystem, and that's the biggest one, and then you look at where can we make the most impact the fastest, and you look at the role that China plays with their quite frankly really dynamic low carbon technologies, you know they've cracked it. The cost of those is right down already because they've got the benefit of the manufacturing sort of scale and stuff, so we thought, right, that's where we're going to hit. And what we did was we produced a facility of 4 billion, well, and went to the bankers and we basically white labeled everything with our risk, so the risk appetite was there. Named the clients, went to the bankers and said, "Right, here it is. Off you go, guys and girls, of course. But I think women are a key driver here. Yeah. And they did. So it was a public announcement. Journalists getting in touch, saying, "Can we get in touch in a you know nine months a year to see how it's going?" [27:39] NBL you know, well, all I can say is it's gone really well, and there'll be more. So I'm super thrilled with how the facility is sort of working. But this is outbound, as you said, and around the globe. So one example is Eve Energy in Hungary. So we can book this where it needs to be booked, but it's an accelerator. So one of our roles is not just convening, but it's also joining those dots. It's connecting, and then accelerating. And in Hong Kong, we also announced with the Hong Kong Green Finance Association, we were the commercial bank, and we want more to come in and join us. The Green Accelerator. So it's all about finding campaigns, facilities, partners to accelerate this transition. [28:00] [28:30] NB Well, I love that you said connecting the dots because I'm really interested. It seems like oftentimes, you know, you'll say the technology is there and the policy is there, and yet you mentioned offtake contracts earlier in the conversation that need to have a customer at the end of all of this that's going to pay you for what it is that you're providing and I guess I'm wondering how do you see I mean is there a role for finance and how do you see that role in connecting that last those last two dots between the producer and the customer and oftentimes it seems like that's the sticky part. [29:05] NBL I mean, the answer is yes, absolutely. And again, I think given who HSBC is, given the scope that we have from the small climate tech startups right through to the big multinationals, through to the big institutional investors, to high net worth individuals across the globe, we are uniquely placed, and again have this responsibility to look at things at an ecosystem basis. And we have had an absolutely fantastic time connecting these startups with the clients who are going to use their technologies, so the off-takers with investors, and we run these programs. They're called Climate Tech Connect programs in Hong Kong Green Week. We run, you know, the first one in Hong Kong. 150 people is physical. You know, you get people in a room, you color code their badges. You know, I am a startup, I am a corporate, I am an investor, whether a high net worth individual or a sort of a huge investor, we do demos. We get them up on the stage. They can demo their sort of propositions, and then there's this sort of feeding frenzy of networking afterwards. In fact, we kicked off at 5:30 on the Monday evening. I couldn't work out why the lights were going on or off. 9 p.m. We're getting booted out, and we've done these sessions around the globe and will continue to do it. But what we really need to scale this up is a is a sort of like an efficient dating agency app, so that we can match stuff. But matches are not always what you think. Okay. I remember in the COP in Dubai we were holding a round table and we had a it was a construction recycling company, so they would take the construction waste. And on the other side of the table, there were about 30 people in this room was a surfboard manufacturer. Now I would not have joined those dots, but apparently surfboarders really bond with their product, and they have a better ride and experience if their board is made out of rubble and recycled material. They care about the planet. They care about their experience, and I would not have joined those dots. But there we go. So yeah, we convene, connect, and accelerate, and that is a critical role that we have to play. [30:58] NB I mean, it sounds a little bit like speed dating for the for the clean tech sector. It's exactly that. It's exactly that. So this is all you need to do is build the Tinder for clean tech or something, for lack of a better term, [31:09] NBL and we are working on it because doing it manually is not going to be at the scale we need. Highly successful, but we need to do this at scale. [31:20] NB Well, I wanted to talk about. I mean, so you've had perspectives: Hong Kong Green Week, London Climate Week. You were in New York for Climate Week as well, and I would love to hear some of the maybe the similarities, some of the similar threads that you saw weaving through those conversations, but also some of the differences because I think it's become more and more apparent that the transition is going to look different in different places sometimes. So, how would you maybe compare contrast some of the narratives that you heard in your conversations. Yes, [31:49] NBL I mean the two weeks come from different sort of places, literally, but different sort of starting positions as well. The Hong Kong Green Week is very structured, is very organized. Regulators sort of heavily involved. HKMA do quite outstanding job. The New York Climate Week is much more sort of self driven in the current sort of mode, anyway. And so everybody who goes to New York Climate Week will come away with a completely different set of meetings, different experiences. The scale of the meetings in Hong Kong is huge. So you can have 1000 people and 1000 on dialed in live and so on. Whereas I'd say the meetings in New York Climate Week were much smaller much smaller. Systems systems thinking. I'm so pleased about this. Okay. Compared to even 18 months ago, it was a bit fringy. Now very central. So the similarities both definitely talking about systems. Both reflecting concerns, quite frankly, on the data centers and the AI. And is it too much? Is it too quick? Are we really seeing the economic models come through? The cash flow predictions come through. What's the robustness? Obviously, people concerned about power, water, impact on community. Those that debate sort of pretty equivalent. Connecting those dots very much the same, I would say. We always host a bunch of sort of roundtables, and we focus on trade, we focus on power, we focus on blended finance, so quite similar, quite similar in that sense. I came away from both feeling very positive, and I wasn't expecting to have that actually, and I think what's definitely in Hong Kong, and they had a day where it was with Dubai as well. That corridor, a really strong sense of not just can do, but really will do, and a sense the whole ecosystem is working together to make and understand what is required to unblock the blockers that you were talking about before. How do we direct financing? How do we build the necessary sort of fintech? HKMA ran a fintech symposium on the Friday. Absolutely fantastic sort of session. So coming at it from different ends, meeting sort of in the middle, a lot of similarities, more similarities than I actually thought. Interesting. Yeah. [32:00] [34:31] NB Well, that's. I was wondering. I mean, if you could synthesize all of this into, say, one thing that's maybe that you're very hopeful, one thing that you think is very a positive trend in the transition, and maybe one thing that concerns you or that keeps you up at night as you're thinking about how this may all unfold. [34:48] NBL Well, the concerns the concerns is this is just too slow. We are not on track for an orderly 1.5. Everybody knows there's a massive overshoot. That is going to hit people. People are literally going to die. So it's too slow. So that is my concern. My positive is the strategy that we're a year in and now is definitely working, and other banks have been in touch to sort of say quite envious of your strategy, and I am sharing because this is not about banks competing. This is about the scale of this super investment cycle is in the trillions. So we need everybody to lean in, and if we can all share the successes that we've had, if we can all take an ecosystem and crack it, then we can get back on track. [35:44] NB Excellent. Well, Natalie, thank you so much for joining us here on the sidelines of the Rystad Energy EMEA Summit here in London. It was a fascinating conversation. [35:52] NBL I am really looking forward to the rest of the summit. Actually, I loved the opening remarks and those five forces. Thank you. [36:00] [36:00] NB Thanks for listening to Let's Talk Energy. This podcast is a production of Rystad Energy, and this episode is produced by Rystad and Lerner Productions. Check out the show notes for further analysis on the topics that we've discussed in the episode, and find us on social media. We're at Rystad Energy on all your major platforms. While you're there, please give us a review, hit that subscribe button, and leave us a like. 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