Gautam Adani says Ukraine war exposed overswing on green tech

Gautam Adani, Asia’s richest man who built his empire on coal-led businesses, said the world’s headlong rush into “nascent” green energy solutions has undergone a correction after the ongoing war in Ukraine forced countries to scramble for fossil fuel supplies.

“Very few are willing to admit that there had been an overswing on the side of green solutions and technologies that were still in their nascent stage,” Adani wrote in a May 26 LinkedIn note after attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. “This fragility has been totally exposed by the crisis in Ukraine.”

Better sense may now prevail around “what pragmatic energy transitions might look like as opposed to green transitions based on little more than magical thinking,” he said.