We've all heard the expression, a picture's worth a 1,000 words. You know, the idea is that a complex idea or message can be delivered more effectively with a single image that sort of lets you create the narrative. But does the opposite hold true? What about a single word or a few words? Can they capture a 100 years? A 1000 years? And when you think about the 17th 18th century, it's
been framed the age of enlightenment for good reason. We focused on reason, science, individual exchange, democracy, and the separation of church and state. Building from the 18th 19th centuries, the industrial revolution, that significant shift in economic and social structures, rapid technological advancements, urbanization, changes in labor practices. And as we close the 19th century, the the concept of nationalism, this need for self determination, redrawing borders, forming new
states. 20th century, the civil rights movement, particularly in the states, secured equal rights and end racial segregation. I'd say the end of 20th century, maybe globalization was the word, as we saw how the digital revolution could interconnect economies and cultures and societies. Key question to you is, what do you think will define this century? Will it be that pandemic, artificial intelligence, upheaval, migration, climate
change? Or if all of these headwinds coming together, and we're gonna frame it the age of complexity as we battle, or the age of creativity And this year, I want to devote a few of my episodes to breakthroughs, And this year, I want to devote a few of my episodes to breakthroughs that could solve some of our biggest problems. Today, I want to talk
about RBC Capture. A Canadian company called Deep 6, and a 33 year old as one of the smartest and most energetic individuals I've ever interviewed on Chatter That Matters. His name is Phil De Luna. He's a chief carbon scientist and head of engineering at Deep Key, a firm focused on carbon removal. Imagine the year is 2050. It's the day that we declared victory in our fight against climate change. We live in a net zero world. Humanity finally removes more carbon
from the atmosphere than we emit. But none of this is real. But at h Three, he's managed to accomplish a few other things, including a Governor General's Gold Medal winner, Material Science. He's ranked in the top 1% of the world in his field. He's a member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada, an adjunct professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto, a Forbes top 30 under 30. He's worked at McKinsey, and he's
also had political ambitions. This is Chatter that matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC. Phil De Luna, welcome to Chatter That Matters. If I can be so personal, how old are you? I'm 32. So how is it possible at age 32 you've accomplished so much? I don't know. I guess I get bored easily. I always try to find a new talent.
No. Honestly, I owe a lot of what I've been able to do to the mentors in my life, and whenever you see someone who's successful or you think is successful and they have this impressive CV, you have to remember that there are so many people that help them along the way. And no one gets to where they are their own. And I appreciate that. Maybe I was gonna save this towards the end of the show, but we were on and
talking about mentorship. And I was reading about you, and you give so much credit to both your parents and your wife. And let's just start about your your parents, where they're from, and the fact that they came to Canada and all the reasons why. Yeah. So my parents I'm Filipino. I was born in Taiwan, actually, but my parents were temporary foreign workers there, when they were around my age or in their early thirties. They weren't supposed to
have a kid, but, surprise, I was born. Then I moved to Canada when I was 5 years old, grew up in Windsor, Ontario. My dad, who is an engineer in the Philippines, was an auto worker in Windsor, automotive capital of of Canada right next to Detroit. My mom, like Tony typical, immigrant women, worked in customer service. We didn't have much money growing up. I remember one night, my dad was working a night shift, and my mom was working, a night shift as well.
And because we couldn't find or afford a babysitter, she just brought me to the hotel that she was working at, and I stayed in one of the empty rooms. I don't know to this day whether she was allowed to do that or not, but I just remember that very vividly as one of the earliest memories I have as a kid. Anyway, so that was an auto worker. Mom worked customer up for a sec because your dad was you just you just rolled it off. And I hear this so often, these immigrants coming to Canada
searching for a better life. But he was an engineer. He had that in his knapsack, and yet he's forced to do shift work. How did you feel that made him feel? Because I've always questioned the sense of chasing a dream and then all of a sudden being having cement poured on your feet. You know, it's interesting you asked that because I think for both of my parents, they knew what they were giving up in order to come here and that knew the sacrifices that they would have to make in order to give
their kids a better life. And so I I'm sure it was difficult. I know it was difficult. He worked shift work. There were some times where he'd be driving home from work, and he'd fall asleep at the wheel at the intersection. And he wouldn't know how long he'd be out for, but he'd wake up and the light would be Three, and someone would be honking behind him. It could have been a few seconds. It could
have been a few minutes. I hope that least what I've been able to achieve and what my sister is doing right now, is some some modicum of accomplishment. And, you know, my parents had always said growing up that, people can take things away from you, but they can never take away what you know. And that's why education is so important, and, I've I've always taken that to heart. Where did the love of science come from? I mean, you know, you you roll off at age 32, and I just spent
half the podcast interview talking about your resume. So it had to begin somewhere. Yeah. I mean, I I'd always loved science as a kid. Magic School Bus was my favorite TV show growing up. I would always beg my parents for some change so I could buy, little chemistry kits at the Scholastic book fair. I don't even know if they still have those, but that I remember that again. It's a walk on memory lane for me on this podcast.
I don't know where it come comes from, to be honest with you. I just always knew that I love science, that it was a a curiosity of mine, and that I wanted to understand the world and discover new things. You're Filipino. You're growing up in Windsor. So you're not, I would say, part of the majority. Did you find in school that the sense of the science brain allowed you to find like minded
people and create a community? Or, you know, this combination of your ethnicity and your love for science kinda made you not part of the cool kids, not having that table at the cafeteria everybody wanted to sit at? You know, I unfortunately, I would say it's the second piece. And I would, I would actually say that I downplayed, my intelligence when I was a bit of a kid. I tried to be more of a a social troublemaker, very talkative, very social kind of guy. And, you know, to be honest with
you, I just wanted to belong, like, with everyone else. But, you know, growing up in Windsor, I was one of the only Filipino kids, if not the only Filipino kid in my class. Again, another childhood memory. I remember coming to school with, this adobo chicken and and fried rice, for lunch. Today, I'm, like, craving it, just talking about it. But when I was a kid, I was like, I just want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich next to me. I can't trade any of my food with
them. And so I I remember, like, shame shamefully, you know, before lunch would start, I, like, I threw it out. I threw out the chicken and rice because I didn't want my classmates to know that that's what I was bringing, and I just pretend like I didn't have anything that day. I didn't hide away from being smart or anything like that, but, you know, I I thought that there was the stereotype of, oh, yeah. Yes. He's Asian,
so he has to be good at math. And if there's one thing you'll know about me, you could see that my career, I hate to be pegged in any one box. I hate to be called any one thing, and so I'm always constantly trying to improve and reinvent and evolve myself. And did you ever take that troublemaker out of you? Because what you know, I first was reading about you. I said that is gonna be a very serious interview,
but it's gonna be a lot of fun. I mean, did you ever did it ever leave you, or is that kinda one of the things that defines you is the sense that status quo, process and rules aren't necessarily the best way to lead someone of your of your Three? Absolutely. It's it's absolutely something that's defined me, and it's something that I've had to keep in check. You
know, it's interesting. When I was at the National Research Council of Canada, for example, when I was working the government, you know, I often felt that I was pushing the boundaries, and I was frustrated by the pace that the government was moving at. And I was seen as a sort of young, and and it's funny because when you go into a large organization that is hierarchical, being a young person, you can be discounted because you don't
necessarily have experience. But I would actually take that on its head and say, Key, I'm young, so I don't know any better. Why don't we try this? Why don't we do that? And, you know, oftentimes, it would work. I would do things that were, you know, bending the rules in some ways, but they were effective. And then people would just chalk it up, oh, he's just young and he he doesn't have kids yet. He doesn't know how the way the
world works, etcetera, etcetera. And I would I would take that, and I would use it. So, being a little bit of a troublemaker, I don't think the party's ever really left me. And I know I I inherit that a little bit of that from my parents as well that, you know, my dad who's had a rebellious Three. He's always controversial, always talking at the dinner table about, whatever the the latest political thing was to rile people up. And I I
don't know if he ever believed anything he said. He just wanted to see a reaction. So I think I've I think I've kept a bit of that. Talk to me a little bit about university. You go for your master's in science. Mhmm. And along the way, you know, you just you say, you know, I probably to your teacher, I'm pretty excited. I'm gonna go after my PhD. And they say you're not good enough. That's almost like Delco Records saying to that Beatles, we think guitar and rock and roll bands are done. What do
you do as a young person? Because there's a lot of young people that get rejected all the time, as you said, because of their age or their stigma. Like, what did you do to kinda use that to your advantage? Yeah. So for a bit of context, I did my master's at the University of Ottawa, and I did it in computational chemistry using computers to solve chemistry problems. And in that field, my professor was this guy who
was really interested in method development. There's kind of 2 types of people in the space, those who like to code and build the tools and those who like to apply them. I'm more of an application guy. I like, I'm big picture thinking,
less than the details. And so we clashed. And it was a very valuable lesson for me, actually, which was understand the people that you work with, the people that are your mentors, your supervisors, their working style, what they value, what they what how they operate, and make sure that it matches with what you want. And in that situation, it just didn't match. And, you know, I I I think he was probably judging my coding ability. I'm
not the best at Python. And he felt, oh, this guy is not gonna be good enough to do, a PhD. Despite the fact, by the way, that I had published a couple of papers in my masters, more so than anyone else in my cohort, I took that as a piece of evidence. Right? Like, I was very analytical about it, and I said, okay. Do I wanna do this? The answer had always been yes. 100%. Am I gonna let this guy tell me that I can't? And then I looked at okay. Do I
have the intrinsics to do this? I have public I have publications. I I I think about things and, you know, and so I decided, screw it. I'm gonna apply to every single university that's better than this one. I'm gonna have the best PhD. I'm gonna publish more papers than this guy's ever published in his life. And I did. And, you know, it's it's funny to say, but spike can be a very strong motivational
factor sometimes, and, I certainly use it that. A lot of people maybe that are sports fans wanna understand this, but I do because I've actually had the privilege of talking to some PhDs. I mean, you were published over 50 times in university, cited over 16 1,000 times. I mean, those are kinda Michael Jordan numbers, aren't they? They're those are pretty that's a lot of effort and a lot of thinking and a lot of peer to peer reviews giving you a thumbs up. Yeah. A lot of writing. A lot
of a lot of writing. No. I mean, I again, I was very lucky and I, to to land at a university with a professor who believes in me. My my PhD supervisor was professor Ted Sargent, and and he's a bit of a savant himself. You know, he's not a typical academic. He runs his lab like a company. You know, you have deliverables. You have hierarchy. You have, projects that
have strict timelines and stage gates. It's it it taught me a lot about how high operating organizations function and entrepreneurial organizations function, but it was all within the academic setting, so we had a lot more freedom. And I was able to publish a few papers, you know, multiple in science and nature with that professor. And, again, you know, it's it was about the team atmosphere, about meeting on and building upon the work that others had done before you. And, I
I I I owe a lot of my career to to Ted. I do find it's challenging to recreate the excitement and atmosphere you had in that lab. You talked about going to the research council and such. You're the young person. I mean, do you ever you ever go, oh, those that's the kind of situation I always wanna set myself up in, where you have conditions for success versus just
conditions to impress? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think a lot of what people want in their life, ultimately like, Key, competition is fantastic, and it's great. You have to feed your family. But I think people want to feel that the work that they do matters and that they have control over their own destiny. So purpose and autonomy. And while I was that NRC, I definitely felt that the work
that I did mattered. It it was, you know, I was serving my country. And, what I didn't perhaps share is I I also read for office, in, the 2021 federal election and a part of that being an immigrant coming to Canada. I don't think my life story could have been possible in any other country. And so I feel an immense amount of debt to this nation, and I love Canada with every fiber of my
being. So being able to work and use my skills to help the public good was so fulfilling, but the lack of autonomy was was honestly crushing. And so is that balance between the the rebel, the troublemaker, the one who wanted to go do things, and the intelligent, logical, sort of effective person. And I think there's that struggle inside Key all the time. And the places that I thrive the most is where those 2 people are happy. Where did this whole fascination with carbon
capture begin? One of the reasons I went to do my master's with this professor, was because of the type of research that he was doing. I went to an undergraduate conference and he was showing, his research on screen, giving a presentation, and he was discovering new materials to capture carbon dioxide. And at the time, you know, a lot of people thought this was gonna be too expensive. It was never gonna work, etcetera, and it has completely blown
up as a field since then. But the very first time I thought about, you know, using or the things that I would be excited about doing in my life, I knew was about chemistry. I knew I wanted to do material science because, I didn't really like organic chemistry Three much. And then when I thought about materials and looked into it further, you know, you know, you could go down the electronics path. You could go down structural materials, functional materials.
That I realized that underlying all of these things is that, yes, materials are key to the quality of life that we have, but they've also led to an incredible problem that we face, which is climate change. And we have to rethink and reimagine the ways that we build the things that we use, the materials, the way that we make them. And so my fascination with with carbon capture started with okay. Actually, it's gonna be very difficult to completely reimagine every single thing that
we've done. There's so much sunk cost, so many, ways and entrenched the pipelines that you're gonna have to tear down and build back up, which would lead to social unrest. And so if you can't underlie if you can't change that quickly, and we have to deal with climate change quickly, then why don't we at least capture the emissions either before it hits the atmosphere or remove it once it's already in there? So let's talk a little bit about
RBC, and we'll weave in some of the work you're doing right now. But in this century, my opening, I talk about sort of 1 or 2 words that define centuries, Three age of enlightenment, the industrial revolution, globalization. And I would argue that either this is gonna be the age of complexity because we have so many problems to deal with or climate change. Yet when I read out there, there's so many people still denying climate
change. And I don't know if that's just because of social media, that's because if the problem seems so big that I or it's becoming very personal because I have to pay taxes on it. But why do you think we are still at a point where the concept remains intangible and therefore easy to debate. There's something about interesting about humanity and our psyche in general that no matter what topic, there are going to be people who disagree. We still have folks who truly believe that the
world is flat. Right? Like, incontrovertible, scientific evidence that you can see, touch, feel. It's increasingly becoming clear with climate change that's the same thing. Look outside. Look at what happened this summer. Look what happened what's happening right now in the winter. It's one of the warmest winters. When I was in Ottawa, doing my masters, I could skate on the Rideau Canal. I have you you're not able to Key you haven't been able to skate in the Rideau Canal for a few
years now because of how warm it's getting. So why do I think that's the case? I I I think there's a few things. There's the the very slim population that no matter what topic, no matter no matter anything, there's gonna be something that's hardwired in folks to disagree. Sounds like your dad, by the way. Yeah. A little bit, honestly, in many ways.
There's gonna there's gonna be a a subset of the population whose livelihoods depend on the way that things were done before and who see the energy transition or who see addressing climate change as a threat to their way of life or a threat to their economic security. And and that's true in fossil fuel producing nations, Canada being one of that.
And that's true across people, again, whose livelihoods depend on being able to get to work every day, and they're just looking at the gas prices increase and inflation, which, by the way, has been proven isn't actually very much tied to the carbon tax. The carbon tax only, accounts for about 2% of inflationary
pressures on the index. But in any case, I think it really comes down to those 2 things, being hardwired to disagree and also seeing this as a threat rather than the opportunity that it actually is. So talk to me about Dakota Protocol, the Paris Agreement 2015, the COP Conferences. It seems to be that the narrative has changed from leaders shedding their self interest to becoming much more the way the media presents it often is a lot of jet setters and their private jets showing up
and not really getting beyond rhetoric. Do you think that we are seeing progress on a global stage where there'll be less talk and more action? All we have to do is look at the the numbers, right, in terms of the number of policies that have been announced, the number of private corporations that have set net zero targets. So first, let me address your comment about that is just a a a, you know, with the World
Economic Forum, but for climate. Right? Like, a little bunch of jetsetters coming down. Yeah. So I went to COP 28 this year, and it was the first time that I'd ever been. And I was I was excited. Right? I mean, this is
this is the Super Bowl for Climate Nerds. And when I went, I was surprised the thing that struck me the most was not the number of of Key setters or celebrities, but the number of policymakers, municipal workers, public servants from every single country in the world coming together
focused on one problem. And it was it was it was actually quite beautiful because, you know, you would have, you you had representatives from low lying Caribbean states who's were worried, like, quite quite seriously about whether or not their country will exist to, you know, Tony gas petrol states in the Middle East who are thinking about how do they transition away in a world that they know will have to wean itself off of oil and gas.
And they're all all together. So what is the value of something like this? The value is having a forum where literally every single person, every country in the world can come and be represented and have a discussion and try to make progress on climate. The thing that we don't want is for rogue states or for a part of the world to not care, to not do anything, to not feel
the pressure from the rest of the global community. Because climate change emissions, just like COVID, you know, does not know borders. So unless we have these gatherings and unless we actually talk to one another, and, by the way, in a society that is increasingly in a world Chatter is increasingly becoming more polarized and, fractious, If we don't have this place for us to have this conversation and try to find common ground, then there's no hope for us to make action
at all. But you could argue that Canada has, you know, stood on this topic for quite some time, but the mass would suggest we've really made very little progress. And you wouldn't be wrong. And it's one of the the biggest disappointments that I have in in Canada in general, is the lack of of of progress. But we have to recognize a few things. When you when Key think about the climate reduction goals, it's often towards a baseline, you know,
50% from this year, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. We have a very low baseline compared to other countries because our electricity grid is relatively clean, the majority of which is actually hydroelectric. There's a little bit of coal, or a little bit of oil and natural gas. We've we outface coal before we set our targets. So other countries, all they have to do it's not
all they have to do. It's a difficult thing, but they can address much of their emission reduction targets, their low hanging fruit before 2030 by, switching their electricity production from coal to other sources, renewables, even natural gas. They'll they'll lower their emissions. We don't have that luxury. So we're starting off at a very low point and are asked to decrease even further down. That's 1. 2 is it takes a long time to do this.
We have a cold climate where we have to heat our homes and population. We have an infrastructure that needs to be built out even further in order to electrify heating around the country, And we have immense population increases that many can argue are leading to inflationary pressures, costs of living crises, affordability, and that has a ripple effect on how we're able to decarbonize per capita as a country. Because the more people that we have, the more
energy that we need. Do I think that we could be doing more? Yes. A 100%. Do I wish we were? Of course. But I I do think that we're starting on a pathway, And a lot of it, I'll give credit to trying to keep up with the United States, you know, with their inflation reduction act that the Biden administration passed a couple of years ago, which was a massive, subsidy, one of the largest climate tech bills ever passed in the
world. And so Canada has come forward with a few of their own targeted investment tax credits to help spur the industry, like the carbon capture realization that storage tax credit. And so Canada is doing its part in in in trying to, trying to remain competitive, trying to keep up in this transition, and really walk that laser thin, tight rope, between what is politically palatable, and what can
actually drive emissions on fast enough. Before I get into your work with Deep Sky, just my last question is carbon tax, which seems to be so polarizing. Is that something you buy into in terms of a strategy moving forward, or do you think there's a better path to accomplishing our goals? So if you're an academic, if you're an economist, and I love economists, no offense to economists, the carbon tax is the best thing in the world because it is a broad based, market driven thing. You
set a tax. You don't choose an industry. You don't give subsidies away. You just let the market do its thing, free market capitalism at its greatest. The biggest issue so far with the carbon tax has been that it hasn't been high enough to actually influence factors. It was a half measure. They set the carbon tax too low. Well, maybe I'll put it this way. If the carbon tax was introduced in that 19 eighties at the prices that we had now, it would have been perfect because it
would have been a slow ramp up. We would have been able to decrease emissions at the same time as have this carbon tax. And in many ways, that's what they did with acid rain, emissions, and, we were very effective at decreasing, acid rain, NOx and SOx, these sorts of things in the eighties. And also and we we never hear about the ozone, being depleted anymore because we were able to deal with that with, chlorofluorocarbons. CFC is the biggest
contributor, to to to ozone depletion. But when it comes to CO2 emissions, we weren't able to do that early enough. So the carbon tax that exists today in Canada or anywhere else in the world, in my view, is a half measure because it's not biting enough to actually spur Chatter. And so I think the time for the carbon tax unfortunately has passed. We live in a complex world that is no longer governed by economic equations and ideal free market capitalism.
Key live in an emotional world. We live in a political world. And so I actually think what the United States has done by creating incentives, carrots rather than sticks, and having a bit more of a hand in shaping the industrial policy and the destiny of its country and how it will that least try to meet the challenge of this energy transition is what we should be doing here. And we've started to do that. We've started to see that with, these investment tax credits.
But I think the one of the worst things, frankly, that the Trudeau administration could have done was that carve out for Atlantic provinces on a home heating oil because that's exactly what you're not supposed to do on a broad based free market tool like attacks is erect or create carve outs. You become the chief carbon scientist and hedge engineering at Deep Sky. I have to imagine, at age 32, with what's in your resume, with the work you published, you had a lot of
doors that you could have gone through. What made you choose DeepSky? Purpose and autonomy. At DeepSky, it's the first time in my Chatter, since my PhD, actually, where I feel that I have both the purpose in the work that I do, but also the Three, the autonomy to drive things and that I am my own limiting Chatter. Not the organization, not the rules that were there before me, but myself. And so the story of how I came to be at Deep Key, I
was at McKinsey and I was getting a little bit frustrated. I knew that, it was an interesting role, and I was having a lot of fun, but I I wanted to do something on my own. So I was actually thinking of starting my own company, of of starting a carbon removal company. And, as an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, I had a colleague of mine who I made a Three recent discovery. He was gonna patent a new technology. I was gonna
license it. I was gonna go start, like, a company. And I met the folks at DeepSky, because DeepSky is a a technology agnostic project developer. And I met the founders, Fred Lalonde and Joost Overkirk. And what they were doing is they were going around the world trying to find people who are developing carbon capture technology, carbon removal technology, to bring them to Canada to scale it. And so I met that, and I thought, Key, I'm gonna wow them. They came to
the University Toronto. I I showed them the technology. They said it was amazing. I thought they were gonna fund my start up, prepurchase my first pallet, and I'd be off to the races. Instead, they said, Phil, come join us. Join our mission. We already have the funding, so you're not gonna have to spend the first two years of your start up career, in the worst venture capital raise environment ever. And in a few years, if you still
wanna go start your company, we'll support you. And I talked earlier about finding mentors and people who believe in you and that will support you. And you know it when you see it, and I felt it immediately. So I've I've always I've never really followed a role or an organization or compensation. I followed people, and people that I feel that I could really learn
from. And these are these are folks that for context, Fred and, and Yost, cofounded a company called Hopper, which is a, you know, a $5,000,000,000 Canadian tech company in the travel space. They still travel. They're a competitor to Expedia. And so, you know, I I felt that I could really learn from people who had built $1,000,000,000 businesses before. And then I so I left
McKinsey, and I've it's been a rocket ship ever since. I love when you talked about I'm not sure if it was on your in your obituary or your Key page, but how you wanna be remembered. Know? It's funny that that age 32, you're already thinking about that, but that's quite interesting. It had nothing to do with your awards. It had nothing to do with your ranking. It had everything to do with how many tons of carbon you've captured. Yeah. I
always joke. I say, you know, on my Wikipedia page when I die, I wanted to say Phil DeLuno Three responsible for x tons of Key removed from the atmosphere. And, you know, it's it's it's this north star objective. People are aided by having these these points of focus. Right? Whether it's a deadline that you're striving towards or an objective or goal, it really does help get
people to be effective. I've found a way to have a very simple metric, tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere that I can monitor, measure, and track, and that I could I could put my life against. And is carbon capture gonna be the magic bullet, the panacea that's gonna absolutely make a massive impact on the quality of our planet? No. The answer is no. And no one solution is going to be. It's a combination of every single lever that we can pull. And so first, let me talk
about, you know, my 5 step plan for us to save the world. And then I can talk about, carbon capture as part of that 5 step plan. So the first step is protect what we have. You know, we should we need to stop deforestation, cutting down the Amazon. The lungs of the world that give us our oxygen, we need to protect them. The second thing is, we need to have renewables everywhere. We need to scale up the renewables as quickly as possible.
Solar today is Chatter, and wind is cheaper than many forms of fossil fuel electricity, and that's a good thing. So we have to get going and start building. The third step is to electrify everything we possibly can. In Canada, we have really cold Matters. And right now, we use natural gas to heat our homes when we could be using electric heat pumps instead. So we have to retrofit every single
building in this country, which is a massive undertaking. We need to transition away from gas guzzling internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, electrify as much of the of the world as we can with those clean and green electrons in step 2. In step 4, is once we've electrified as much as we can, we have to tackle hard to abate sectors that are impossible or difficult to electrify. Things like freight or aviation flight. We can make new sustainable aviation fuels, concrete. We can
embed carbon dioxide into a concrete or make green concrete. So all these materials that Key being a material scientist that gets so excited about, we have to find new ways to make those. And then step 5, finally, once we've done all of those things, is capture carbon. And we have to capture carbon both from the flu stack, from its
point source of emission. So in all of these factories and these big chimneys that you see in TV, we have to capture c o two before it hits the atmosphere and we actually have to remove carbon dioxide that already exists in the atmosphere and take it out. So those are the 5 things that we have to do. Protect what we have, renewables everywhere, electrify everything, tackle hard to abate emissions, and then capture the carbon that remains.
When we return, Phil Del Luna offers some compelling advice for anyone on how to chase their dreams, and then I provide my Three takeaways. Hi. It's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters. I wanna congratulate RBC in the launch of the RBC Climate Action Institute. Canada needs more dedicated approaches to climate policy and action across agriculture, energy systems, buildings, and the RBC Climate Action Institute will be the place for advancing climate smart ideas to
help Canada reach net 0. Mother Nature and the future of our planet, well, that matters to you, to me, and to RBC. Unfortunately, today we are divided. One side is fighting for the eradication of an entire industry, the other side is fighting just to preserve itself. For me, it's never been an issue of us versus them. We urgently need to move away from this thinking of us versus that, and come together against the real problem,
us versus the emissions. You're listening to Chatter That Matters with Tony Chapman presented by RBC. Phil De Luna is my guest today. There's few I've ever met in my entire life, let alone uncharted that Matters, that has this intellectual firepower with this incredible emotional connection to the human race. Just listening to you, do you think you're going to once again put on your hat and run for office and sort of drive this change with this kind of
conviction? Because you come at a very pragmatic basis. You understand there's capitalism involved. You understand that there's political rhetoric involved. I mean, there's a lot of things that you get. Do you see that one day you might go back into the into the ring? Not now. Because of the work that I'm doing at Deep Key is so meaningful. It's a way that I can make change. Even in politics, you're confined by your party. You're confined
by the public opinion, by the rhetoric, and what you can do. A lot of people think that, you know, Justin Trudeau is the source of all of our problems and he's this all powerful, scourge or something. But the reality is even he is just trying to stay afloat like everyone else. He's trying to stay keep his head above water. And so to answer your question directly, would I run again? I I think, yeah, absolutely 100% because I still believe in the political
process, in the democratic process. I believe that if we don't have pragmatic, experienced, well thinking people who lead this country, then what will we have left? We'll just have career politicians who, who know how to divide people and who know how to highlight problems rather than find solutions. And I think that's very dangerous
for our country. But will I do it now? No. I'm I'm too, I'm too excited to entranced, too focused and obsessed with the work that I'm doing, to to give that up, and then to go through the grueling process and of of, and heartbreaking one of running for office again. Although, if there's anyone listening out there who's ever thought of doing it, please do
it, because we need more people, of every walk of life. We need more, nurses and plumbers and teachers and carpenters and scientists and doctors and engineers and everyone running for office. Because, again, if we don't have, regular people running for office, then what will we have left? As we close that the interview, time and time again, I've seen you give credit to your wife. You gave credit to
your parents earlier in this interview. What role has your wife played in allowing you to find that sense of purpose and autonomy? It's it's corny, and it's so cliche, but I really would not be the person I am today if it wasn't for her. And I'll I'll give a few examples in my Chatter, so where her influence, her support that meant everything to me and has enabled me to do what I can do, in my PhD. So
I I thought I was gonna be a professor. You know, I thought I was gonna go on the academic path, and, you know, I was publishing all these papers. I was on that pathway. And then halfway through my PhD, my wife who, my girlfriend that the time said, you know, Phil, she's from Toronto. She works at Sick Kids. She's an operating room nurse. She loves her job loves her job. We have our friends
here. She wanted to build a life here. And if you're in academia, anyone who's in academia knows, if you wanna be a professor, you can't choose where you live. You go to your PhD somewhere. You go to a postdoc that some top five school around the world, and you get a job in who knows where they'll just wherever you can get one. And then she said, Phil, I wanna stay in Toronto.
And I made that decision then that I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to be a professor, and it it it catapulted me down this this unconventional and much more fulfilling career, I think, than if I had just gone down academia. When I decided that I wanted to run for office, the the the the thing that made me the most nervous was actually telling her, hey. This is something I think I wanna do. Keep in
mind, I had to take 6 months off without pay. I had to give up my paycheck because I was working for the federal government, so it was a conflict of interest. And at that time, we had no idea when the election was gonna be called. So I I was taking time off, and it could have been 6 months. It could have been a year. You know, she said, we're gonna make it
work. We'll figure it out, and I support you a 100%. So, you know, having someone that you can come home to, that you can talk to, that doesn't necessarily, know your field or is gonna debate you and everything, but can just listen and and and and support and be empathetic, has has has meant everything to me. And, yeah, we got married in September. We we went, you know, it was the first time I'd taken, you know, like, 3 weeks off of work and, like, my career. We went to
Italy, and I actually unplugged. And I I, you know, I could say it was probably the happiest I've I've been in my life. You're 32, and I've talked to a lot of young people. And I would say, sadly, the vast majority don't have the shining eyes that you do. They don't have
the sense of passion. They don't have this excitement about what you're doing. What advice can you give to the young people today who might be feeling very beaten down by the headwinds that there is opportunity to have, you know, as you call it, purpose and autonomy, and a great life. You can have purpose, and you can have autonomy. Anyone can do it. You just have to want it hard enough and try. And I know that sounds so privileged
in the sense that, you know, people have bills to pay. They probably have families to feed. Why are you telling people to just take risks and try? You the the big unlock in my career, in my life, was for applying for things and trying and reaching for things that I knew I wasn't qualified to do because you'd be surprised the number of people that post applications, or that post jobs where they know that no one is gonna be able to meet it, and
they're just looking for the best available. And oftentimes, people are their own worst enemy. They say, ah, I'm not qualified for this. I I I'm not ready for that. And they just don't they don't they don't take that step to try. And so, like, I I've always believed that in one's career, we you need to optimize for different things in order to find that purpose and autonomy. When you're younger in your career, you need to optimize for diversity of
experience and try as many different things as possible. A lot of people will think, you know, oh, Phil. You've haven't been able to stand still. You've you've done one thing that longest. You've stayed at a place is 3 years. Aren't you worried that that's going to look badly in your career? No. If anything, if you look at the career trajectory, every pivot that I've
taken hasn't been a pivot downward. It's been a pivot up. And you have to take that that perspective of always constantly trying to find new things that are going to excite you. And don't don't rest and and allow the world to beat you down in a in a position or a place that you don't feel utilized. If you don't feel happy, if you don't feel excited about what you do, then try something else. And it
could be something completely different. Like, you could you could be a scientist doing your PhD and decide that you watch The Bear and you wanna go become a Michelin star chef and go start, learning how to cook and go work in a in a in a restaurant. It doesn't doesn't matter. Just keep trying different things until you find the thing that you love. That what I think that's what you have to do when you're young. Then you move into the mid part of your career where I think a lot of people
are focused on impact. You found the thing that you love. How do you figure out how to turn that into something that's impactful? And that that a lot of people transition away from being an individual contributor to a manager or to a leadership role, and people stumble through how to become a leader and leading through example and making impact. And then in the last stage of one's career, I think a lot of people are focused on legacy. What is it that you want to leave the world behind? What
is it you wanna be known for? And, you know, those Three stages, thinking about, you know, where you are in your life, in your career, what you wanna do, working backwards from where you wanna be, those are all things that have helped me plan and map things out. And I should say that my life was never really purely mapped out. There were lots of failures along the way and every and lots of turns that
I didn't expect. It looks like a perfectly planned travel experience on paper, but that's not the way it was. So, again, my advice for young people at any stage is just keep trying until you find the thing you love, and and don't be afraid to fail. You know, Phil, I always end my podcast with my Three take aways and put this number 1, just listen to you. You know, you really talk about life as this accordion that opens up. And as you get on,
you get into leadership and then legacy. And what really interests me about you is this accordion comes together. Here's the 5 things we need to do about the planet. Here's the Three things you should be thinking about. It's like you're almost a fusion of the past, present, and future. And I find that incredibly fascinating about you. And the second is you're just a great student of human nature. I love when you said early on, spike can be a motivator. You know? Or here's what you'd be
thinking about. Or here and your curiosity of human nature is another fascinating thing about it because I don't often associate that with scientific nature, which is scientific nature is much more process driven. And the third thing is which is the the sense of purpose and autonomy, something you've landed on, but more importantly landed on because you give credit to the people that matter most to you, starting with your parents, obviously, your wife, and, of course, what you did with
just finding mentors through university and finding mentors where you are today. So for all of that and more, at age 33, I hope I'm around for another 33 years just to see what how much carbon you take out of this planet, how much of this government you get to run, and just continue to follow,
your trajectory. And I am so happy you're in Canada and love Canada because you're the kind of, sadly, the kind of person that can very easily get picked off by countries that might be a little bit more advanced in terms of, providing the capital to keep minds like yours, gainfully thinking and employed. So thank you for joining me in Chatter That Matters. Canada is the best country in the world. It really is. It really, really
is. And a lot of people, it's very Canadian to be shy and to not say it and to, to to be humble, but it it it really is the best country in the world and I wouldn't be anywhere else. And I think we all have a duty to make it better and to keep it the best country in the world. I hope everyone does their part to do that. Joining me now is John Stackhouse. I first met John when he was editor in chief that The Globe and Mail. Today, he's the senior vice president in the office
of the president of RBC. John, welcome back to Chatter that matters. Always good to be with you, Tony. Thanks. What I'm fascinated with is what you're doing with this Climate Action Institute because you're opening the doors and inviting the world to be part of the conversation. Yeah. The key part of the institute is that word action. We feel and we hear from
a lot of people, there's a lot of talk. It's important to discuss, debate, and inform a lot of critical questions around, around climate, but we gotta get moving, and get moving right across the economy. As we know that climate crisis and all the challenges that come, with it are on all of us to, to get going on. So we're working with clients, we're trying to bring together communities and help Canadians act, and move faster, which we know Canadians not
only wanna do, we're already seeing it, across the economy. We just need to scale it up and, and accelerate. What I like about what you're doing is that you're trying to get this conversation happening so that it's not us feeling helpless, which is what I think a lot of
the media is doing. It's too late. But you're keeping this positivity and possibility saying if we start acting now, putting dents into this problem, that our collective energy can, in fact, not only solve it, also create a renaissance in terms of what capitalism stands for, which is, you know, a social conscious doing the right thing. Yeah. And I agree fully, Tony. I think one of the things we underestimate is the power of business and of of markets to drive change.
We're seeing extraordinary change in the United States, in in large part because of the inflation reduction act, But that has created incentives and unblocked disincentives for for industry Chatter it's in scaling electric vehicles or expanding hydrogen, or to invest in what's called climate smart agriculture with a speed and scale that is really breathtaking. So when when we talk to clients or groups in the in in the US, we want to ensure Canadians are keeping pace with that and and
we can. I get to deal with a lot of RBC's best clients, whether it's in real estate or energy systems, from electricity to oil and gas to agriculture. And the amount of innovation going on across the economy from farmers to gas companies to developers is really impressive. It's as good as anywhere in the world, but we have to come back to that point and remind ourselves of speed and scale. How are we gonna do this bigger and faster? Because
the challenges are right before us. They are bigger, and planet Three keeps reminding us that we don't have as much time as perhaps we'd like. So as an invitation to my listeners to get involved, is there an opportunity for them to learn more about what you're doing, to participate, take action, or is it more is this more sort of, in the inner circle of just a sort of people with the greater influence? No. No. This is on all of us, and I love the advice of Katharine Hayhoe.
She's a climate scientist, a great Canadian. She teaches in Texas and is a world leader in terms of climate advocacy. And she likes to remind her followers action groups in your neighborhood, in your community, in your company, or action groups in your neighborhood, in your community, in your company, or in your your sector. You'll find them everywhere. Get involved. Don't leave this to the scientists Institute at RBC. Come to our website at just Google
RBC and Climate Action Institute. You'll find us sign up for our weekly newsletter called Climate Signals, which has a lot of really interesting ideas, and insights on what we can all be doing and what Key should be, what we should be watching and listen to our podcast RBC Disruptors, which has a lot of great, great climate conversations. I've known you for probably 20 years. I certainly saw you in the editor in chief of the Globe and Mail. I've never seen you more passionate and more
focused about, a body of work that you're involved with. So thank you for joining me in Chatter That Matters. Thank you, Tony. Chatter That Matters has been a presentation of RBC. I know. This can feel overwhelming. Just know that you're not alone. The best thing that you can do is talk to your loved ones about climate change. Every CEO that I've talked to has had their minds and their hearts changed at the dining room table with a conversation with their grandkids.
That stakes are high, but so too is the opportunity, And we are fighting, not for ourselves, but for the generations to come. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening. Let's chat soon.