Alpesh Patel, a leading authority on investing and entrepreneurship, invests in renewable energy, such as wind farms, and contributes to the fight against climate change. As a UK Government Dealmaker, Alpesh sources global tech companies that provide climate change solutions, including carbon capture.
What has your experience of working with renewable energy and fighting for climate change policies helped you understand differently than a layman?
The speed at which the decline is accelerating, it was famously once said how did your demise occur? Somebody was asked and they said slowly at first and then very rapidly. And that's the issue with this and I think from the investment, my firm is made into biomass and wind turbines. What we've realised is the task is massive and the things that we are doing are, too little too late in most cases. On the positive side, at least we're doing them. The UK now has more energy from wind than it does from fossil fuels which is phenomenal. But at least we did it, and at least we're doing a little bit, we're managing a decline globally.
Is the UK equipped to handle the current climate emergency?
I think what I saw from the UK were two things which made me an optimist. One is obviously COP and, UK's leadership and pushing on that strongly. Secondly, in particular, credit goes to Alok Sharma there. I first met him when he was trying to be an MP about 13 years ago.
So thank goodness he got the seat. And the second thing that the UK has is it's actually shown, thankfully not relying on Russian fuel and therefore energy security and also just how much offshore wind can feed into the grid. We're already doing it. It's incredible. So really pleased with, and I think a lot of that goes both to the Blair government and Brown and David Cameron's government as well, which has been then carried on. So I don't want to make a partisan point. I think both governments, both major parties and the smaller ones are all on the same page.