Jessica Uhl on the Fractured Energy Transition: Why Speed Matters Now

**Jessica Uhl** (0:04)
I worked for Shell for around 18 years. I was CFO at a time when climate was red hot as a topic. I think I was during peak climate, if you will. I think we've eased off of peak climate for good and bad reasons, probably mostly not great reasons. You've got to have enough leadership and enough vision to imagine a world that doesn't exist today. And you've got to go through the troughs of that experience to get to the other side.
Those kinds of things need to happen in the energy system.

**Bill Loveless** (0:35)
The clean energy transition had real momentum at the end of 2024 It was buoyed by federal support, billions of dollars in investment in new technologies and broad acknowledgement of the costs of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But major roadblocks have emerged over the past 18 months. US support for some forms of clean energy was revoked. And rising energy costs, due in part to the urgent call for data center buildout, has made affordability a priority for many stakeholders. The challenge is truly daunting. Despite significant energy investments, some 80% of the world's energy is still derived from fossil fuels. Tariffs and supply disruptions have made clean energy infrastructure hotter to build. So, what does all of this mean for the speed and scale of the energy transition? How are businesses navigating so much instability when billions of dollars and decades-long infrastructure commitments are at stake? And what does this all say about whether the global energy system can ever be clean, accessible, and affordable?
This is Columbia Energy Exchange, a weekly podcast from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. I'm Bill Loveless.
Today on the show, Jessica Uhl.
Few executives have worked across as many parts of the energy system as Jessica Uhl. She's held senior leadership roles in upstream oil and gas, renewables and power technology, including serving as CFO of Shell and later as president of GE Vernova. Jessica is now a senior advisor with the Three Cairns Group, an investment and philanthropic firm focused on the climate crisis. She also serves on a number of boards, including the executive and advisory boards here at the Columbia Center for Global Energy Policy.
Jessica and I talked about the imperative to speed the world's transition to cleaner energy. She described how technical challenges, policy swings and cost barriers have stymied progress toward making energy abundant, accessible and clean. We talked about the ways that climate action has cooled in recent years, but also strategies that conventional energy companies could use to lower emissions quickly, including by investing in emissions reduction technologies for natural gas. Here's our conversation. Jessica Uhl, welcome to Columbia Energy Exchange.

**Jessica Uhl** (3:20)
It's great to be here, Bill. Thanks for inviting me.

**Bill Loveless** (3:24)
Well, we're happy to have you here, especially with so much going on in energy markets around the world and conflict that we see every day in the news and in the headlines and all.
It's important to have conversations with someone like you who's had such a long and distinguished career in various roles in the energy sector. And I think that's important here. You've had this important career. You've achieved a lot at Shell, at GE Vernova and executive positions, and are now involved in a number of other endeavors with other organizations, working on a variety, a very interesting variety of topics, I think. I'm just interested as we start, where that experience you've had over the years in the different energy industries brings you today in terms of what your outlook is in the energy world.

**Jessica Uhl** (4:18)
Thank you, Bill, for that introduction. And I have been in energy for some, almost three decades now. And what drew me to the sector and what's kept me in the sector is its huge relevance to society and the delicate balance that you need to seek to support growth and prosperity, while ensuring that the energy we use and produce has a minimal, if kind of ideally, you know, no impact on the environment. And trying to make all of that be true at once is very challenging and has been a compelling opportunity, if you will, for me throughout my career. And trying to make that be true. How do you make sure people have access to energy, that that energy is as clean and sustainable as possible for a thriving planet and is abundant and affordable for the masses? And that's what allows society to thrive. And so those central questions is what brought me to the sector and what has kept me in the sector. And those are, if anything, even more relevant today. And there's even more pressure on the system today. The climate issues are more and more in front of us. The kind of time is getting shorter and shorter for us to have an impact.