The energy transition would need a major change in the mentality of stock market investors to succeed. Investors’ focus on relatively fast returns and immediate financial performance right now makes them reluctant to invest in transition companies. And this could become the death knell of that transition. “Public markets are probably the cheapest cost of capital,” KKR partner and co-head of climate, Emmanuel Lagarrique, told Bloomberg recently.
” It is that these cash flows may never materialize—because of things like negative electricity prices and exorbitant EV price tags, or green hydrogen costs. Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, a mining vet and vocal green hydrogen proponent, recently laid off 700 people and dropped a plan to turn his iron ore company Fortescue Metals into a green hydrogen major by 2030.