Capital in Transition is Carbon Tracker’s monthly podcast on the global reallocation of capital in the energy transition.
Hosted by Mark Campanale, Carbon Tracker’s CEO, and Harry Benham, Energy Advisor, each episode translates complex research into clear insight for investors, policymakers and industry leaders.
We track where money is flowing, which technologies are scaling, how geopolitics is reshaping deployment, and the implications for long-term strategy.
The transition may be technologically inevitable but capital markets still need incentives, clarity and bankable pathways to move at pace. Understanding what drives investment decisions is central to managing financial risk and identifying opportunity.
From time to time, Mark and Harry are joined by external guests and contributors.
Harry Benham is joined by Richard Folland, Carbon Tracker’s Head of Policy, to ask what the UN climate talks are for and what they have changed.
Richard, a former British diplomat, traces the COP process from the breakdown of negotiations at Copenhagen in 2009 to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which showed countries could agree a shared framework for climate action, and on to Dubai in 2023, the first COP agreement to call for a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. Richard argues that countries have fallen short in delivering on the ambitions of the Paris Agreement, while Harry stresses the value of having shared targets.
They also discuss why the signals a COP sends to business and investors matter, how the failure to agree a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP30 in Belém helped spur the separate Santa Marta process, and what would count as meaningful progress on climate finance at COP31 in Antalya. With global temperatures already overshooting 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for short periods, Richard makes the case for why continued international cooperation and faster climate action remain essential.
Get in touch with comments and questions at capitalintransition@carbontracker.org.
Further reading
UNFCCC – COP28 outcomes
UNFCCC – Second Global Stocktake
European Commission – International climate finance and the NCQG
UNFCCC – Baku to Belém Roadmap
Government of the Netherlands – Santa Marta conference outcomes
Financial Stability Board – Establishment of the TCFD
Bloomberg – Report on a possible China hosting bid
Glossary
COP · Conference of the Parties. The annual meeting of countries signed up to the UN climate convention. The number identifies the meeting.
UNFCCC · United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The treaty underpinning the talks. The name also commonly refers to its secretariat.
G2 · Group of Two. Informal shorthand here for the United States and China.
TCFD · Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. A framework for reporting climate-related financial risks and opportunities. The Financial Stability Board created the task force in 2015.
ESG · Environmental, social and governance. A broad set of considerations used in business and investment.
NCQG · New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance. The climate finance goal agreed at COP29.
SIDS · Small island developing states. A recognised group of countries facing particular development and climate vulnerabilities.
LDCs · Least developed countries. A UN category based on income and structural vulnerability.
MDBs · Multilateral development banks. Banks backed by multiple countries, including the World Bank and regional development banks.
CT · Carbon Tracker.
Global Stocktake (GST) · The five-yearly assessment of collective progress under the Paris Agreement. The second stocktake begins in 2026 and concludes in 2028.
Santa Marta process · Cooperation on transitioning away from fossil fuels, separate from formal UN climate negotiations. The first conference took place in Colombia in April 2026.
Coalition of the willing · A group of countries choosing to advance an issue together.
Consensus · Reaching a decision without a formal objection. This is the usual approach at COP.
4 Nov 2026
How Does an Oil Asset Die?
Oil fields don’t simply run dry and shut. Wells have to be plugged, platforms dismantled, pipelines dealt with and land restored – and the bill arrives long after the revenue has stopped. Carbon Tracker research estimates that decommissioning oil and gas infrastructure in the United States alone could exceed $1.2 trillion, with global costs potentially four times as large.
Picking up the question Episode 7 left hanging – when production ends, who closes it all down, and who pays? – Harry Benham is joined by Barbara Davidson, Carbon Tracker’s Head of Capital Markets Transparency. They explore why the end of an oil asset’s productive life is an economic decision as much as a geological one, how retirement liabilities are estimated and recorded in company accounts, what happens when ageing assets are sold to operators who later collapse, and why roughly 75% of US oil and gas retirement obligations sit entirely off balance sheet.
Get in touch with comments and questions at capitalintransition@carbontracker.org. If you've enjoyed the series, please subscribe and leave a review.
Further reading:
Asset Retirement Obligations: What Lies Beneath?
Overlooked: Why oil and gas decommissioning liabilities pose overlooked financial stability risk
Decommissioning the Northern Endeavour — Australian Government
Responsible Exit Principles for Oil and Gas Companies
IASB: Disclosures about Uncertainties in the Financial Statements — Illustrative Examples
FASB agenda consultation response — Ceres, Carbon Tracker and CAAP (PDF)
6 Oct 2026
Why Do Oil Fields Still Get Built?
Why do oil fields still get built? Harry Benham is joined by Guy Prince, head of Carbon Tracker's oil and gas team, to follow the long road from discovery to development – and look at why so many discoveries never make it.
They discuss why "a billion barrels" is never quite what it sounds like, how $100 oil turned deepwater, oil sands and shale into household names, what a breakeven price really tells you, and why a perfectly profitable field can still lose the competition for capital.
The episode ends in the North Sea, where Harry and Guy look at the investment case for Rosebank, before turning to the question at the centre of the next episode: when an oil field shuts down, who pays?
Get in touch with comments and questions at capitalintransition@carbontracker.org. If you've enjoyed the series, please subscribe and leave a review.
26 Aug 2026
Where is Energy Capital Going?
In episode six of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham and Mark Campanale look back across the series and trace the thread running through every conversation: capital, and where it is flowing.
Two divides are reshaping the energy landscape: within oil and gas, listed majors have become capital-return businesses, prioritising dividends and share buybacks, as their reserve lives shrink. National oil companies, by contrast, now account for around 60% of fossil fuel investment and some 55% of production. And beyond oil and gas, the manufactured energy economy of solar, batteries, EVs and grids now attracts $2.2 trillion in investment each year. That’s twice the amount flowing into fossil fuels, yet listed oil and gas companies barely feature in this new system.
They also discuss why shrinking reserve lives matter to bondholders, what the latest Statistical Review of World Energy reveals about renewables and demand growth, and whether energy could follow mobile telephony towards deflation and abundance.
Send comments and questions at capitalintransition@carbontracker.org. If you have enjoyed the series, please subscribe and leave a review.
28 Jul 2026
Ambition Under Pressure: Why capital hesitates
Why do investors who clearly understand climate risk so often struggle to act on it?
In Episode 5 of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham is joined by Carbon Tracker's Amy Owens to find out. Drawing on her report Ambition Under Pressure, Amy examines NBIM – manager of Norway's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund and one of the world's most sophisticated investors – and finds a striking gap between what its climate analysis reveals and how it actually invests.
She calls it "strategic hesitation": not denial, but the drag of mandates, benchmarks and governance built for an older energy system. A sharp look at why capital moves slowly – and why that delay is becoming a risk in itself.
Linked report: https://carbontracker.org/reports/ambition-under-pressure-analytical-leadership-vs-strategic-hesitation/
Inquiries: capitalintransition@carbontracker.org
22 Jun 2026
Who Builds the Future? China and the new energy system
If energy is becoming a manufactured system, then who builds that system matters. In Episode 4 of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham and Mark Campanale are joined again by Kingsmill Bond of Ember to examine where the ElectroTech build-out is happening and how this is shaping capital flows, industrial power and the future of the global economy.
The conversation explores how China has established a leading position across key clean technology supply chains, from solar manufacturing and batteries to electric vehicles and grid infrastructure, and why that concentration matters for investors and policymakers alike.
Read the related blog here: https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/what-is-electrotech-and-what-will
16 Jun 2026
The ElectroTech Revolution: Why this is an economic shift
Is the energy transition simply about replacing one fuel source with another, or are we witnessing a deeper restructuring of the global economy?
In Episode 3 of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham and Mark Campanale are joined by Kingsmill Bond of Ember to explore what he calls the “ElectroTech Revolution”, the shift from an energy system based on extracting and burning fuels to one built around manufactured technologies.
The discussion examines how electrification, digitalisation and manufacturing cost curves are transforming energy from a commodity system into a technology system – with major implications for capital allocation, industrial strategy and financial markets.
Link to the full analysis: https://www.electrotech-revolution.com/p/reframing-energy-for-the-age-of-electricity
If you have any questions, please email capitalintransition@carbontracker.org
3 Jun 2026
The $4.5 Trillion Myth: What the transition really costs
One figure has come to dominate discussions about financing the energy transition: $4.5 trillion per year. But what exactly does that figure represent, and does it accurately reflect the scale of the challenge facing capital markets?
In Episode 2 of Capital in Transition, Mark Campanale and Harry Benham examine how headline transition investment estimates often combine fundamentally different categories of spending, from consumer EV purchases and grid infrastructure to early-stage technologies and long-duration industrial decarbonisation.
The episode explores what sits behind the headline number and whether it provides an accurate picture of the investment needed to build the next energy system.
Learn more: https://harrybenham.substack.com/
If you have any questions, please email capitalintransition@carbontracker.org
6 May 2026
The Quiet Retreat: Why Big Oil isn’t leading the transition
In its November 2025 piece, The Quiet Retreat, Carbon Tracker argues that, despite political calls for more oil and gas financing, many international oil companies are acting as if long-term demand growth is uncertain. After a decade of capital discipline, investment in new oil and gas supply has stabilised well below the 2014-2015 peak, and more cash is being returned to shareholders rather than used to expand production. Episode 1 examines what is driving that behaviour, and what it signals for investment decisions across the energy system.
If you have any questions, please email capitalintransition@carbontracker.org
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