On this week’s ship.energy podcast, Paul Stuart Smith, Managing Partner, JS Global Advisory, and Mark Williams discuss whether, in the light of recent announcements from energy companies and recent election results, decarbonisation is going backwards.



They consider the progress and challenges of decarbonisation and the broader ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) framework. 



Paul emphasises the need for increased investment in renewable energy and alternative fuels, as well as stronger government support and regulatory clarity. 



He also highlights the importance of ESG reporting and the pushback it has faced, but notes that companies are increasingly focusing on ESG issues and adopting reporting frameworks like TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) and TNFD (Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures).



Paul is a former Executive Director at the Baltic Exchange where he led its regulated subsidiary from 2009-17. He previously held high-profile roles in Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley and Chemical Bank in London and New York. His experience includes managing Morgan Stanley’s financing and borrowing activity in Europe, as well as managing significant risk positions for both firms in bond, currency and derivatives markets.



As a consultant he has advised the Climate Bonds Initiative on its Shipping Criteria and a UK bank on the structuring and roll out of a ground-breaking green finance product based on Green Bond & Green Loan Principles and the EU Taxonomy.



He works with listed companies across sectors and geographies with a particular focus on decarbonisation, the energy transition, and corporate reporting of climate-related risk in line with the TCFD recommendations, including scenario analysis and selection and reporting of KPIs. Other current projects include advising on the development of the business model for a new Global Biodiversity Standard which aims to provide much needed assurance to carbon sequestration projects and carbon credit markets world-wide.



In 2023 he contributed to a report from the UNDP which calls on regulators and policymakers to integrate social inequality-related risk fully into financial stability and disclosure frameworks. 



He is an Oxford-educated mathematician and trained as a barrister