1/21/23 - Weekend Listening from Intercontinental Exchange
Our guest this week:Mark Lewis, Head of Climate Research for Andurand Capital Management
A few fresh flurries fell softly on CNBC’s alpine set in Davos, Switzerland this week as Andrew Ross Sorkin, Becky Quick and Joe Kernan quizzed NYSE President Lynn Martin on the state of the markets. Upon her return stateside yesterday, Lynn posted her own reflections of the week gone by.
Forgive me for focusing on atmospherics, but what struck me about Davos this year versus earlier gatherings was just that: the atmosphere.
To be specific: I’ve been eyeing the Swiss bare spots that, time of year, should be buried by drifts of surplus snowfall. As Bloomberg reported last week, the region’s snowpack has thinned more than 40% on average since 1971, the first year the World Economic Forum convened at its hilltop enclave 1,560 meters above sea level.
The New York Times weighed in, too. “Statistically, it’s a super strong pattern,” Sabine Rumpf, a professor of environmental science at the University of Basel, told Times correspondent Erika Solomon. “We are getting more and more years with less and less snow.”
What could be the cause? William Shakespeare might offer an answer. As the Bard penned in Julius Caesar Act I Scene II, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / but in ourselves.”
Mark Lewis, Head of Climate Research for ANDURAND CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLP, looks to Shakespeare for inspiration on how his hedge fund manages its $1.5 billion of AUM. Andurand’s Commodities Discretionary Enhanced Fund gained about 50% last year, betting correctly that supply-chain disruptions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would lead to jumps in oil and other commodities.
“There are many, many quotes in Shakespeare on climate change,” Mark told me on this week’s episode of Inside the ICE House. “Perhaps one of the most famous speeches in all literature is Hamlet's speech at the end of Act II.”
Our conversation compelled me to consult the Complete Works for the first time in a while. Here’s what the fretful Prince of Denmark told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:
I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
Reading the passage was an ‘aha moment’ for Mark. “That's literally 400 years before the IPCC published its first assessment report on the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which I like to think Shakespeare anticipated,” Mark told me.
Listen to the rest of our conversation at the link below.
The view from Davos:
Andurand Capital’s Mark Lewis Sees Through the Tempest of Climate Change If, as the Bard said, “what's past is prologue,” then there is no better person to talk about the future of energy markets than Mark Lewis, Head of Climate Research for Andurand Capital Management. Mark pioneered the green finance discipline and now advises clients on investment opportunities created by energy transition. As the World Economic Forum gets underway in Davos, Mark shares his outlook for energy markets, unpacks new developments in carbon pricing, and explains how William Shakespeare had much to say on the environment and climate change.
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