Climate Radical

"The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism...with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate" 

So said some young left-wing extremist on a random podcast I was listening to in my semi-awake, virus-addled state. Oh no, hang on, I just checked, it was actually a guy called Günther: 50+ Austrian, former McKinsey partner, then CFO then CEO of Allianz investment, managing $17.6 billion of global investments, now on the board of the umbrella Allianz company "the world's largest insurance company and the largest financial services company in Europe." (wiki)

I noticed he is also Chair of the Allianz ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Board. That probably means our late friend knew him personally. These are the kind of people he spent his professional life with, providing evedence-based, balanced, reasoned opinions to very able people about the long-term sustainability of their global businesses; earning respect, forging compromises, smoothing feathers, longing for change. I would have asked him

Günther is clearly not the sort of man whose eyes brighten when he says "destroy capitalism". He wants a world where capitalism is safe and Germanically solid, where companies can insure their assets, customers can get mortgages, investment does not depreciate at crippling speed, entire regions, cities and business sectors do not become unviable. Günther paints a measured, balanced, even stolid picture of how it will happen and how bad it will be. That makes it all the more convincing. He has said it all at Davos; maybe our friend heard him or helped him; I doubt if Günther was ignored

You can fool half of the people for a while, but you can't escape Günther's graduate mathematics - that's the only deal available

Günther wisely keeps his personal life just that; his words make him and those he cares for a target. I can't find out if he has grandchildren; perhaps he's a little young. I think he's working, in his way, for ours and our friend's