“The ecological transition? It is not easy, but it’s the only way to build the future.”

In conversation with Frenchman Gaël Giraud, who founded and directs the Environmental Justice Programme at Georgetown University in Washington, where he teaches political economy.
“Too many banks have a large part of their capital invested in fossil fuels, we need to change course, but we need a shared political choice.”

Gaël Giraud has an extraordinary story. Born in Paris on 24 January 1970, he is first and foremost a distinguished economist. An Elysée councillor to President François Hollande, he was the chief economist and director of the French Development Agency. And he worked for five years on Wall Street – between 1999 and 2003 – familiarising himself with algorithms and the derivative products that would soon create a financial tsunami with the subprime mortgage crisis—learning the mechanisms to stay away from.

Polyglot and also a mathematician, reflective with a sharp intellect but was marked by grief as he saw his parents and two younger brothers pass away early. He was also profoundly affected by his civil service experience in Chad, one of Africa’s most complicated countries. “I understood the gap between North and South on the planet,” he says. In the meantime, he had discovered his religious vocation, deciding to become a convinced priest and Jesuit. Two of his most valuable volumes on economic and financial trends have recently been in the bookshops: ‘The taste for change. The economic transition as a way towards happiness” written with Carlo Petrini and Stefano Arduini (LEV, Libreria Editrice Vaticana and Slow Food Editore, 2023, pp. 178, euro 18) and “The soft revolution of the ecological transition” (LEV, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2022, pp. 236, euro 16).

Professor Giraud, you are now in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University. You teach political economy and direct the Environmental Justice Programme. Why do we need to change?

“To look far ahead. With Carlo Petrini, we often repeat this. Do we want a world with more or less solidarity? Do we want to be cooperative or competitive citizens? An altruistic or individualistic population? What counts in our lives is not how many cars we own, but the quality of relationships between us, nature and our children.”

Why do you talk about happiness?

“We need another criteria to look at the world other than profit maximisation. We mustn’t talk only about growth, but about the overall development of man, which is also comprised of other aspects, such as relationships or spiritual interests. As Bob Kennedy said, the GDP is no longer sufficient to represent us.”

Isn’t it good that the financial system is interested in social investing?

“It certainly is. Even if we have to be more selective and demanding, to avoid the phenomenon of greenwashing.”

Is ecological transition possible?

“It is not easy, but it is the only way to build the future. However, important decisions have to be made. You may not know it very well, but the top eleven European banks have invested 95% of their capital ‘in their bellies’ in fossil fuels. If coal, gas, and oil were to be stopped, they would go broke…”

What a mess. Do you have any solutions in mind?

“It could be ‘cleaned up’ by the European Central Bank, if it took the role of bad bank for a while, as was done at the time of the US subprime financial crisis with ‘junk bonds’.”

Is this feasible?

“Technically, it would be. Politically I’m afraid it’s harder.”

It would make enemies, I suppose.

“You know what? I believe that telling the truth always pays off. And one has to do this precisely to look at the younger generations respectfully, thinking about their future. With ‘quantitative easing’, the policy to support liquidity, until 2022 the ECB has repaid several tens of billions of corporate bonds without paying the slightest attention to their environmental impact…”

How can we get out of it?

“Let’s all get involved, including small savers, ordinary people. Let’s think about it, the ecological transition could well represent, at least until the end of this century, the true collective project that our post-modern societies are dramatically lacking. It would be a utopia that – by requiring the cooperation of all levels of society – could give a strong meaning back to our communities.”

Pope Bergoglio signed the preface to the book written with Petrini. That must be a great achievement.

“A great responsibility, I would say. Francis has these problems at heart. It is no coincidence that he urges not only the entire financial world to find answers and commitments. Let’s admit it, he says: “The reckless economic development to which we have given into is causing climatic imbalances that are weighing on the shoulders of the poorest, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. How can we close the doors to those who are fleeing, and will flee, unsustainable environmental situations, the direct consequences of our immoderate consumerism?”

_{Click here to find a video interview of Gaël Giraud with Tv2000 in 2016 where he talks about his life (in Italian and French); here, instead, Giraud is with Carlo Petrini at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo (Cn), where – in May 2023 – he presented the book ‘Il gusto di cambiare’) (in English).}