Climate Asia Masterclass Addresses Pertinent Climate Issues

Earlier this week, Climate Asia organized a virtual masterclass on the theme of “Climate Career Opportunities: Investments / Consulting / Entrepreneurship” with expert guest speaker Santosh K Singh, Partner and Managing Director at Intellecap.

The classes were conducted to bring climate literacy to public discourse; the session covered several essential themes around climate challenges and solutions, emerging areas in climate careers, and essential skills to make a career in climate space.

Santosh Singh opened the session with the remark, “Climate change is not one sector anymore; it is ‘the’ sector that affects everything.” He further highlighted that one doesn’t have to specifically pursue a career in climate, as working in any organization can have climate as a dimension.

The session also covered the solutions to deal with the climate crisis, which is frequently neglected yet extremely important. Singh identifies four comprehensive approaches that address every facet of the issue: Economics, Behaviour, Policy, and Technology. Additionally, he accentuated the inalienable and mutually coexisting nature of all four approaches. Further, he highlighted the emerging areas in climate careers, including ESG and climate risk, carbon market and solutions, nature-based solutions, and climate finance. He narrowed down the career option with its corresponding skills into three categories:

• Entrepreneurs: For entrepreneurs, problem-solving, business development, fundraising, and business operation and management are quintessential. A career in E-mobility, clean tech, sustainable buildings, and climate smart agriculture could be explored based on these skills.
• Investors: Conceptual reasoning, analytical prowess, financial modeling, and due diligence are essential qualities for an investor. ESG investments, climate financing, and PE/VC investors are a few possibilities to investigate based on these skills.
• Service providers: Service providers excel in problem-solving, communications, presentation and writing skills, and business development. This can place them in Strategy Consulting, Implementation Support, Research, and Advisory support roles.

The speaker also talked extensively about ESG and climate risk advisory, focusing on Audit, advice, reporting and analysis, and research. He also took up the significance of the Carbon market and solutions.

In response to one of the points raised during the session about the transition or movement towards climate professions, Santosh suggested that the best course of action would be to define proper steps, which entails awareness, understanding, expertise, and vision.

The interactive session concluded with a discussion around entry-level jobs in climate space which could be viewed from the lens of the carbon project developer & via consulting assignments, climate financing, recruitment drives, and more.

Needless to say, climate change is an important subject that cannot be brushed under the rug. Having raised the alarm bells about the consequences it can have, climate change as a topic of study is gaining momentum from researchers, students and professionals alike.