Confessions of a Millenial Capitalist

While I am no longer in Nepal and obviously much time has passed since I last wrote about my experiences it is important for me to have a capstone in order to reflect upon the trials along my journey living in South Asia and share my story.

Written language and photography are my only vehicles for conveying my understanding so I struggle to utilize them effectively as they inherently fail to encapsulate all the complexities and nuances from my lived experiences. Please forgive me. I will try my best to articulate an accurate portrayal.

When I first arrived in Nepal to take up the mantle of Country Manager for Green Ventures carbon operations I was 23 years old, bright eyed, cocky, and naive. I had rushed to the opposite side of the world for adventure, fortune, and to realize my perceived destiny to affect

I landed in the middle of an investor summit Green Ventures had organized in order to demonstrate its capabilities of operating within the Nepalese sociopolitical-economic context and executing on a planned hydropower project portfolio of over 2,000 MW of generation capacity at a forecasted cost of over $3+ billion.

Green Ventures started originally as a carbon hedgefund, uniquely positioned to leverage primary and secondary market spread opportunities within South Asia's dominant power, India. However a planned EUR 200 million fund, marketed to institutional investors had turned into managing accounts for select high net worth individuals.

Since 2002 Green Ventures had opportunistically invested in South Asian hydropower,especially Nepalese hydropower, buying rights to some of the best projects in the country and by 2009 begun development on a 120 MW hydropower project on the Likhu river. In the process Green Ventures had built an extensive network of relationships across the Nepalese government bureaucracy, flagship political parties (minus the Maoists), hydropower experts, and conglomerates.

So here I was, 23 years old, a millenial capitalist, a seeker, looking to save the world from Climate Change and build his fortunes through the world's promised next major commodity asset class, CO2e, in the heart of one of the world's poorest countries as Country Manager of Green Ventures Nepalese carbon operations in front of investors from Cerberus Capital, Innoven Partners, Green Power Funding LLC, CO2e Capital, and select family offices, presenting on the merits and return expectations of originating, structuring, developing, and monetizing, a carbon credit portfolio across the country...

While seat of Nepalese power in the Kathmandu valley & capital city had once been an important way point in regional trade and the country had flourished in antiquity contributing to innovations in metallurgy, art, and the world's spiritual heritage, birthing Siddhartha, the Buddha, by the 20th century geographic and political isolation made the country appear as a place caught in time past.

By the time I arrived in 2009, Nepal had been placed on the US State Department's warning list and Coca-Cola, Palmolive, and the US Peace Corps, had all left Nepal due to violence, kidnappings, extortion, and the continual protests called Bandhs. It had been three years after the end of a decade long civil war, one year after the parliament abolished the political power of the Royal Family, and no political party or coalition government had been able to maintain control of Nepal for more then 6 months.

A beautiful country, Nepal holds wonders in the natural world and in the human spirit. Intense rapids roll down from the ice capped roof of the world, Everest, near vertical single-track to steppe farms and tropical jungles blending over 100 languages in a country of 28 million people. They worship the winds, mountains, and rain alongside Lord Shiva, Buddha, and the budding flower outside the door. God is everywhere - "namaste" to greet one another other - to recognize the divine in me and the divine in you - in the mongrel dog or the Kumari, living goddess in the form of a pre-pubescent girl who is cast to the street when the goddess leaves her body. All within the cycle of life, death, and rebirth - evil and good, holy pain, holy war, holy man, holy is all that is holy like Ginsberg's howling mantra. Holy, holy, holy, holy, I find my inspiration everywhere in the country. Diamonds unshorn in the trash filled streets rotting with the disintegration of matter from one form to the other. The Bagmati river stinks with a putrid smell of toxic chemicals and death. It nauseated me till I missed the Kathmandu musk.

My friends were fellow travelers and natives searching for meaning in this life. My favorites are many. Sitting drinking smoking and talking. Dancing smiling laughing and playing. Kings of the ex-pat beats, beset by hungry urchins crying for care, I went with them to raging rivers kayaking beyond my ability and would've drowned if not for grabbing a Nepalese River God's kayak pulling me from the never-ending eddies and roaring rapids across boulders. I returned the favor by using my white face and smile to negotiate our passage through angry frustrated sequential Bandhs which chocked the Kathmandu valley in a show of people's power to do nothing. We climbed hills with mountain bikes on our backs when it got too steep, hit gravel pits, single track with vertical drops, and anywhere else we could bike without the choke of pollution. After dinner we sang songs, drunk, stoned, lying and sitting together, the wail of our voices in the darkness. Other times I wandered alone afraid of what I would find around the corner, the dead body, a shyster, someone looking for a fight. Nighttime I'd drive across the city from Thamel to my three story mansion in Bhasi Pati, unlock the 10 ft spiked gates and cry inside myself.

The monkeys always gave my buddy and his girlfriend a hardtime. No one likes a Westerner with a Nepalese girl. He'd battle their dung and stones with a home-made slingshot but never managed to best them, they were too clever and he was too kind.

I always wanted refuge inside the American compound. A huge fortress in the middle of the city built to provide recreation for the American consulate, embassy, and ex-pats but could rarely get in. Non-tourist visas are a must and can only be procured over time and bribes. Mine was a perpetual tourist visa renewed at a lower bribery rate so I only traveled there with friends. It had good beer.

Most of the beer made in Nepal had glycerin added to speed up brewing times and it gave you a wicked headache after a bottle or two. The cure was to drink more.

Green Ventures had at this point a portfolio of 1.5 million credits with a secondary market value at the time of over $30 million which was dependent on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) approval process to monetize our Certified Emission Reductions (CERs)/carbon credits in the country. In open forums where the carbon market community in Nepal gathered there was never a straight answer or clear way forward. We were the first private sector participants in the market and the discussions I initiated, supported by the allies I built in WWF-Nepal and SNV, never got us anywhere. The bureaucrats in the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology (MoEST), the heads of the Designated National Authority (DNA), all simply wanted Green Ventures to pay for project approval. Cash. Extortion, bribery, or special taxes, what is the difference? Clearly it wasn't going to get paid ;)

So as we waited for the process to play itself out in classic Nepalese dramatic form I moved my attention to the voluntary markets looking for opportunities to develop projects under the Voluntary Carbon Standard, Gold Standard Foundation, Chicago Climate Exchange, and Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Alliance. Sourcing deals was fun. I rode motorcycles and elephants around the Terai and Chitwan National park, and built partnerships with the Clean Energy Development Bank, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), GTZ, WWF-Nepal, Center for Microfinance, the Center for Rural Technologies, and our leading corporate CDM clients the Triveni and Golcha Groups. Good times :)