Wikramanayake said she was optimistic following COP26 but any progress had since been reversed. “Emissions globally had come down a lot in COVID and we were feeling like there was good momentum,” she said. “But now, fast-forward six months on, and we are back again. It’s surged to peak emissions ... We’re back up with emissions not just high but rising very fast.”

Fossil fuels still make up 80 per cent of global energy consumption and Wikramanayake said it was unrealistic for this to change overnight. She said renewables would continue to grow market share but the transition must be done carefully and with respect for all affected communities.

“People need energy and if we end up creating energy scarcity we could end up losing the mandate for the transition,” she said. “We have to be realistic. We can’t get going around and saying shut down all the gas, shut down all the oil.”

She pointed to the Biden administration’s moves to ramp up domestic production of oil and gas following the Russia-Ukraine war to illustrate fossil fuel usage will rise before falling in the long term. “We are going to have a pick-up in fossil fuel energy but it’s also, in parallel, pushing the journey to renewables along.”

Wikramanayake said the global response to climate change had created “tectonic shifts” right through the economy, which would continue to create opportunities for investors who identify the right companies and industries.

Macquarie has invested billions of dollars in the green energy transition since the early 2000s and Wikramanayake called on other investors to follow suit, saying regulatory and technology settings were combining to make “this a good investment area”.

“We’ve been doing this, it just needs to scale up a lot, lot more if we’re going to meet the challenge of sorting this out. I’m a little big of a flag carrier. Get on board.”

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