Working in policy is one of the most impactful careers, especially if you want to push for systemic changes for a sustainable future. As a Climate Policy Researcher and Consultant at Perspectives Climate Group, Max Schmidt talked us through what’s involved in his job and day-to-day. We also touched on the impact of AI on his work, the power of language as well as the importance of self-care.

Max’s passion for fighting climate change was inspired by his grandmother - they used to engage in free and thought-provoking conversations over ‘Kaffee und Kuchen’. Despite having a full-time job in climate, Max still enjoys reading books about climate solutions, such as Nomad Century by Gaia Vince and Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below.

Yongsi: First of all, can you give us some more details about what you do?

Max: Sure. As you said, I work for a climate policy institute or consultancy or think tank. We use different terms. I mostly work for the research branch. This is the think tank arm of Perspectives Climate Group. Fully remotely from Scotland. Most of my colleagues are based in continental Europe. We started in Freiburg in Southwest Germany and have expanded significantly, especially the last few years. We've been around for 20 years but the biggest growth was since the Covid-19 pandemic. In a way it became easier to hire people and to work on climate issues across the spectrum from anywhere in the world.

I specifically work in the climate finance team. We have close to 10 different teams and focus on my work on transforming negative public climate finance into positive public climate finance. That's quite a mouthful - sorry for that. The action is front and centre of what we do when we engage with NGOs, governments, export credit agencies - happy to tell you a bit more about these cryptic institutions - and to make a positive change in the world like many other climate sustainability people are trying to do.

We are motivated by our ideals and ideas, and not just for the money. I can tell you that much. We are not a big management consultancy. They do other things. Sometimes good work, sometimes not so good work, but they are important in their own rights.

Yongsi: In case some of our listeners are not so familiar, can you give us some background of how a climate policy institute functions?

Max: Perspectives in particular is part of the wider landscape of NGOs, think tanks, consultancies, who have to find money somewhere. That's the usual big question. In the case of consultancies, it's often public tenders. For example, we work in many projects together and for the German government, for development actors, development finance actors, such as GSZ, or sometimes political foundations. But that depends of course, often funded by philanthropies.

If it's not for profit work, we at Perspectives climate research sometimes work with NGO. Usually big NGOs. They have funding available at times. It's difficult with smaller NGOs. They do their own work, fantastic work. They can't be outsourced that much.

Across a different spectrum of activities for sure. I do quite some research on financial institutions, often research reports, policy briefs. At times, consulting, which could be anything from presentations to targeted audiences. You do capacity building with. I have an example of young climate negotiators from outside Europe who I think, or I do believe to remember, were just about to attend their first COP. We tried to prepare them for that last year and many other things. In that sense, it depends on organisation, but this is how these three think tanks, NGOs, consultancies tend to work.

Yongsi: So it's usually clients come to a think tank with questions?

Max: What happens is if you have ideas for new projects, we in my team are always encouraged to reach out to potential funders, to initiate conversations, to make use of the fantastic University of Edinburgh that is very close nearby, and to brainstorm with people, prepare concept notes. At times, especially last year, we were very fortunate, this directly materialised on our two new projects. So it can go both ways. You reach out to funders or they reach out to you. But it's usually about the trust, about the previous work and projects you have done, that they can see that you are reliable, you know your budgets, contracts. That's always important for both the research and the consulting work. At the end of the day, both parties have received what they wanted to and what they've contractually agreed on. That's the best case.

Yongsi: Besides presenting a report to your clients, would you or your think tank do other things to promote the policy you come up with? I mean, obviously your team would have worked so hard on it, so you probably want to push the policy for adoption, right?

Max: Sure. We usually translate them into policy recommendations, the most important section of every research report policy brief, the executive summary. Maybe the conclusion as well. Some nice graphs in the middle. We of course conduct in-depth rigorous research. But let's be honest, that tends to be read a lot less. It's important to do it to derive the right recommendations and have the numbers right. You don't want to be wrong with one two three digits whatever. It's easy to formulate the bonds.

It can be frustrating if you have to repeat yourself for many years. But what helps me personally is to know that among many favourite podcasts I have, there's one by the most famous German climate economist, Claudia Kemfert, who tends to say that she's been saying the same things for 10 years, 20 years, and she's been around for a very long time. Knowing that she has to face the struggle and she still keeps going, that motivates me as well.

Yongsi: You mentioned that your work is to transform negative public climate finance into positive public climate finance. What do you mean by that?

Max: Yeah, I like it. In a sense, it sounds like an action that most people can relate to. We don't like the negative. We like the positive. With negative public climate finance, I mean trillions of US dollars every year that is not used in the best way to support both people and the planet we share. In contrast, it's used to actively undermine the quality of living that leads to unnecessary air pollution with, for example, diesel or car petrol subsidies. Or it’s used to encourage agricultural systems that are not helping our human health but leads to the opposite - a lot of wasted agricultural produce. On the other hand, there’s starvation but also obesity. All of this can be summarised under energy subsidies or fossil fuel subsidies.

This is what I've been working on ever since graduating. These numbers are absolutely shocking. If you consider that the global economy is 100 trillion per year, roughly 7%, 7 trillion, are fossil fuel subsidies. It doesn't sound too much, but imagine what we could do with that. In Scotland, there are big issues with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, homelessness, and in many other parts of the world as well. This is the money missing for social policies, for better public transport, for cleaner air. It boils down to a better future for present and future generations as well. We have at least 7 billion available to make our lives better.

Yongsi: It's a big number, but easy to remember. What is your day-to-day routine like?

Max: As I said, as a researcher and consultant, I have to do a lot of knowledge products. This is also what I most enjoy doing - publications or things that can be shared with NGOs, with clients, that can be disseminated.

I do have one colleague based in Edinburgh, luckily enough, so it's the two of us. I have a lovely coworking space, but it could be lonely at times. She used to be my intern. What I do quite frequently is that I have at least one intern at a time and help them get started. A bit like mentoring. If they're in a better position, they also get paid and help them on the path of starting a climate policy career.

Working on interesting projects. I mentioned export credit agencies. But across the spectrum of public climate finance, there's a bit more than just that. Obviously, interactions, meetings in Edinburgh in person, whenever I manage to arrange them. Most of the time they’re still online, within the team, with external interesting potential cooperation partners from academia as well as funders. We obviously go to conferences and attend workshops where we can bring in our expertise to to maximise impact. I think we're a bit pragmatic in that sense as long as we can cover our own costs.

I do climate related things in my free time. It's hard to stop you from doing that, but you also want to have a day job that pays.

Yongsi: It’s nice of you to mentor interns at your work. I think mentorship is a beautiful thing. From the intern’s perspective, it’s definitely helpful. But from the mentor’s perspective, it’s also fulfilling. I learnt that from observing my snowboarding coaches. They were as happy as I was when they saw me making tiny improvements!

Max: Mentoring is nice. I mean, part of the Greensider podcast is about mentoring, or let's say most of it.

I generally enjoy doing it. We were all at the same point at some time in our careers. I graduated in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. That was not easy. I wish I would have had mentors back then. I did have one, my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Feyzi Ismail from SOAS, University of London, who went through a very rough time and was not available. Suddenly, as a student in your early or mid 20s, you ask yourself, well, what to do next? What are possibilities out there? What are graduate schemes? Even once you have secured them what internship - ideally paid - it's not that easy to continue with the organisation you joined. Sometimes funding is not there or for whichever other reasons such as visa. It could be anything. I just want to make sure they have a good time and they progress starting from this very difficult point.

Yongsi: You said you need to do a lot of knowledge products. What's the impact of AI on your work so far?

Max: Very good question, very timely. I remember the big hype around spring last year. To make sure that I'm in the way ahead of the pack, I took online courses on how to use ChatGPT best. But I have to be honest, after this, since the start of this year, I've been using it much less.  I guess it depends on the project you are doing, how much of the text parts you can automate, and which licence you have. I can say that we have a good one. I could use any time if I want to. There are use cases, where it's more useful for sure. Others not so much, especially when it's institution-specific. We write a lot of case studies where we need to assess annual reports in detail. We have to conduct interviews with counterparts. ChatGPT specifically is not too helpful for that.

Other AI tools, not to promote any other ones, but this was the big one for taking notes.They can be very useful. They help us save time, which is much appreciated. Another one is referencing tools. All our publications have to be grounded in other people's previous works, standing on the shoulders of giants. Climate policy has been around for at least three decades in a more formalised way. But climate science as such has been going on for a lot longer. We have to make sure we are fully up to date. For getting a full and quick download, AI tools can be useful, but to some extent.

Yongsi: So you don't feel threatened yet?

Max: I don't yet feel threatened. You also have to consider who the grantors of funds or the counterparts are, such as ministries. In a couple of years, it might look very different once you have these AI-savvy bureaucrats sitting in governments and philanthropies. I’m not quite sure what will change then. Strategic questions come with that. But I think for now, because it's such a dynamic field, you really need to be up to speed in the sense of tracking news on a daily basis in order to not fall behind. AI can be helpful, but always in such a condensed way that it's not country-specific enough or not institution-specific, fuel-specific. But this might change.

Yongsi: It seems that knowing how to use AI can be quite helpful for your work. What are other skills that you think are important for being a climate policy researcher?

Max: For sure. Starting in junior positions now, if they are AI savvy or have the skill as part of their degree, it can only be a big advantage. I would say any data crunching abilities from Excel to Python to Stata, they are for sure in demand, probably in increasing demand. For example, if I look at the wider climate finance and policy landscape, there's so many institutions out in the UK, in Europe and elsewhere that track methane amazingly or any of these things that we could not do until very recently.

I would also say that language is obviously super useful. Most of the climate policy work is happening in English. Unfortunately, the consequences of climate change mostly affect countries and geographies way beyond the English-speaking world, where languages such as Spanish and other European languages are spoken. Obviously also languages spoken by the Indian diaspora and Chinese diaspora are in increasing demand. I can say that for consultancies, think tanks or others, the more diverse the stuff is, it just increases your chances to secure new projects, to challenge internal biases of thinking. Also the more diverse stuff is in the sense of gender, academic backgrounds and social backgrounds. If you look at things through a social justice lens for whichever reason, you ask different questions from a purely technocratic or true techno-optimist lens.

Whatever your passion is, whatever you study, I would say put some AI stuff on top, maybe some languages on top. Maybe some volunteering if you have the time or means. Start building your portfolio as early as you can whilst combining it with your passions.

Yongsi: I love that language skill is on your list. I’m fluent in Chinese and English, but I speak bits and bots of Japanese, French, Greek and Portuguese. Even so, it has given me different points of views on things in general.

Max: For sure. Also those languages that are not in written formats. I just had a discussion yesterday on AI and indigenous ways of knowing. I didn't get a good response from these AI people. I think there's a lot more that has to be discussed on where biases exist, also in the tools we use, including ChatGPT, and on who we include and who we exclude.

To give you an example, I've attended COP once. There was a fantastic presentation by a young indigenous person from, I believe it was Brazil, which is the host of the next Conference of the Parties next year. But that was it. That was one person. Where are the others? You speak about thousands, if not millions.

Yongsi: I think our discussion on languages can be quite inspirational for people with a language background who want to start or switch into a career that's focused on climate or environmental or sustainability issues.

Max: I would say that those people interested in languages not only tend to be good communicators verbally, but definitely also good at writing. Writing knowledge products is an important part of my work. I always enjoyed languages. I majored in languages at school. It didn't do me a disservice. I wasn't particularly good at maths, but I loved stats. You just have to find the stuff you're most passionate about. You do need a lot of backing by others to proceed and fully commit yourself to what you want to do.

Another point on languages - to give you an example, even in English there's so much you could challenge. Next time you see the word ‘natural gas’ please think about what is in this wood. What is natural about the gas? They would just be there and don't do much unless humans unnaturally extract it and use it for burning. It's good for heating our homes in cold environments in the short term, but it's not good in the medium to long term. We know what causes climate change and the climate crisis and unnatural gas or fossil gas. That's a better term is one of these components.

Yongsi: Or methane.

Max: But again, this sounds super technical and a bit hard to contest, but fossil gas is mostly methane. When people talk about hydrocarbons, be cautious. They try to depoliticize the term that we should clearly call fossil fuels.Language has power and changes ideas in people's minds and hearts. Don't just uncritically speak other people's language, but make up your own minds. Take courses in critical thinking, a very important skill, as to come up with your own climate solutions on the ground.

Yongsi: You mentioned that you used to study language. How did you end up working in climate policy?

Max: I had a revelation when I was 16, thanks to my grandma, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. She was one of the most important people in my life. She was basically mentoring me, always pushing me to be better academically, because she did not have the privilege of studying. Neither did my closer family even. I always had this exposure to the natural world. I mean we have in the most direct physical sense, with the plants we grew in a little garden. We had one hectare of land that was cultivated. We happened to have sheep and things that connect you a lot closer and more immediately with what we tend to call nature, one of these other funny terms. Everything is nature.

We had amazing conversations every weekend over coffee and cake, a very traditional thing that is still very popular in Eastern Germany, where I'm from. Maybe not the best for your health, but definitely mental health. It was a very pressure-free environment. I could speak my mind. She was always challenging me. She was interested in the world, but didn't have the means to learn other languages, or to travel much. She was passionate about the next generation and forming our minds. In one of the clearest memories I have, we had coffee and kuchen, and happened to speak about something environment, climate related. Suddenly at the age of 16, I realised, damn, this is like the most important thing for the future for most people on this planet. I didn't have the words that it's a risk multiplier, but as a 16-year-old, you can already start thinking along these lines. It will make many people's lives a lot worse. It was both self-interest. I was 16. I want to live a bit longer on this planet. Also just feeling this deeply emotional connection to other people who live through the same experience at the same point of time and my own possible children in the future.

Yongsi: You're very mature to start thinking about survival when you're 16. So what's the biggest challenge so far in your career path?

Max: Even if the pandemic had not happened, it's still very tough. I would say for the first, probably two to three years. I'm slightly above that now. I start to realise a bit more how things work, including contracts and the more admin side of things. The most important thing [in the beginning of a career], very clearly, is just to find something. But at the same time, I would caution not to jump on the first best thing. I believe this is what I did, not with the fellowship right after SOAS. That was fantastic. But with the job afterwards, it was very difficult. I had high hopes I could just continue with that think tank based in Geneva in Switzerland. That did not work out. I was maybe too naive and just thought that if I asked him often enough, we'd find something. We did find something to be fair, but nothing that would be comparable to a full-time job. That was micro-consulting projects that were fun, but you could not live just with them. So I jumped on the first best thing afterwards, moved back to Germany, to Berlin. I was fortunate enough that my partner could come with me, but the next year was extremely tough. I almost lost my passion for working in climate policy and anything climate related.

It depends on the place you work in, the colleagues you have, the structures that are in place. I would therefore recommend if you start, please don't get to the point that I went that could be comparable to burning out. Self-care is obviously crucial. But if you are involved in projects that help others more than yourself, please be aware of that and take the appropriate means. It's not worth especially at the beginning of your career to start with having to reorient yourselves for whichever reason. That was very close to that breaking point. I can promise you that much.

Yongsi: Oh, I'm so sorry that you had to go through something so painful.

Max: It was painful. If your closest friends tell you that you're not the same person anymore, you should really listen to them. Take whatever you can. If it's reducing working hours, if it's sick certificates in countries that allow for sick leave, make use of that course. On top of a full-time job, to apply for other things and continue to work with the same passion and motivation as before, I would say that's close to impossible. I tried it and really it didn't put me in a good place for quite a few months. Now I'm in a very happy place. I'm glad in a way that I made this experience at the beginning of my career so I can now share it with others when I mentor them on podcasts like this. Ideally, you are aware of the situations you're in at the time that you're in them and not just years later.

Yongsi: Looking to the future, what is a typical career pathway for working in climate policy? For example, do you know what people will go to after they think they're done being a researcher or a consultant in a think tank?

Max: I'm done with this, haha. To be honest, we are all humans, so that's perfectly fair. I've noticed that people who've worked in our space had to do a lot of business development such as getting funding and getting an idea of how to secure funding more easily. Therefore sometimes they then go to philanthropies - they are changing the sites and become funders themselves. Obviously, they keep their networks and contacts, which is both beneficial for those seeking funding, such as think tanks and consultancies. And they do understand very well what our current research needs, consulting niches and needs. This is pretty cool. I would expect that more of such philanthropic opportunities will arise in the near future, way beyond the big ones, such as the Jeff Bezos Earth Fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

They're big ones. They're important ones. But many more will come up for sure.

We have policy in our name, right? But it's not the same as politics. It could happen that you then somehow move to national politics. But one of the pitfalls of political systems in the 21st century is they are very national-oriented. Big issues such as the climate crisis are therefore harder to tackle. As think tanks and consultants, we're often sitting between the chairs. We work for different governments, for example, at the same time. So we do have some ties to them, but not as close, I would say, as others that maybe specialise in just one country or are based in the capital that's usually useful.

I don't see it too often that people leave our career path. They might do something more corporate, maybe more ESG or accounting issues. But I think it depends really on your background and maybe your passions have changed. It's perfectly fair if you see that some solutions you previously believed in do not work. It's perfectly fine to focus on new solutions. To give you another example, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, very long, but based on and inspired by anti-nuclear and anti-weapon initiatives and treaties. So whatever the vibe is at the moment and the wave you want to surf on, go for it. As long as you have a good mentor, instructor, surf teacher, do it.

Yongsi: Your work seems quite serious. Do you have any tips to de-stress?

Max: Hopefully you are a jolly and funny and entertaining person. Anyway, that helps me a lot. Thinking about different climate futures can be extremely dark. If we look at climate catastrophes happening already, it can be very depressing for sure.

What helps me personally is doing a lot of exercise, such as yoga, sometimes running, gym, anything that works for you. Having loving and trusting relationships with the family you choose that you have, your partners. And fantastic colleagues who you know as people as well, and not just as on the other side of the screen, which is often hard enough to make space for these social interactions. Being outside listening to bird songs. It's crazy but it makes such a difference in built environments such as cities. Treat yourself! I like to say that because we sacrifice other things with whichever work we do.

Yongsi: Finally, before we wrap up, can you recommend some reading for our audience? It could be books into your field or it could be books that motivate you.

Max: I know that you've had quite a few other subject experts on your podcast, for example, the IPCC author. Fantastic subject experts I can't compete with. I'm not there. I'm not an academic researcher. This is not the thing I'm most passionate about. But what I tend to do in my free time is to read also about the climate crisis, but solutions as well.

To think about things such as the Nomad Century, a new book by Gaia Vince on how to survive the climate upheaval. I criticised how we still work about or with national climate politics. We need completely different solutions, I believe, also outside the United Nations. And becoming more climate nomadic, breaking down some, actually quite a few barriers related to visa regimes are probably one of the ways to go, and saving people's lives before they drown. Contractually and in other ways to secure their survival of island nations. Very interesting book.

I mentioned indigenous ways of knowing, almost completely excluded from climate policy debates. And as a non-Indigenous person myself, I find it more important to read books such as Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer for a Western audience. She's from the US. It just speaks a language I can understand. And it is complementary to a science-based way of thinking. It has a lot of merits. Climate science. It's so important. But holistic thinking and more holistic thinking outside just a narrow climate lens. Absolutely crucial.