House of the Dead by Des Sheridan

Author:Des Sheridan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Des Sheridan
Published: 2013-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 37

Brussels, Belgium, 16 August 2014

Evrard took Pascal methodically through the topics one by one, in priority order, prefacing each with a masterful précis that demonstrated the nature of their company’s interest, its market niche and profitability projections. The most profitable units in the Waverloo Group of companies were manufacturing companies specialising in chemicals, pharmaceuticals and electronics. Infrastructure development was a respectable fourth with energy generation, which they had yet to discuss, coming in fifth position and accounting for less than ten per cent of activity. For the most part Pascal had listened but his intelligent and pertinent questions reassured Evrard that his son had inherited his business acumen.

‘I am not getting younger Pascal. That is why I think you should play a more prominent role.’

‘You could live into your nineties, pater. Look at the world of high finance. There are many magnates in their eighties who show no sign of slowing down. You could do the same.’

‘Perhaps but I don’t want to. At some point I will want to step aside and we cannot be complacent. Family hegemony is dying out in the business world. You can’t take it for granted, Pascal. If you want your cake you will need to help bake it.’

He half expected an angry outburst, but his son simply nodded his head in apparent agreement. He had never known Pascal to be so reasonable.

‘Tell me about energy,’ Pascal requested.

Evrard trotted out his summary. In essence Waverloo’s engagement was conservative and short-term, investment decisions being led tightly by government subsidy rates. Trading carbon credits also accounted for a small but increasing part of the business, and might in time outrank the energy sector in importance.

Pascal posed a number of questions but, unlike the case for the other sectors, he seemed dissatisfied with the answers.

‘I can’t help thinking you are missing a trick here. To my mind these industries should be the big growth sector for the future. Or rather should be seen as components of a much wider climate change sector.’

‘But, Pascal, that is just the problem. The climate change debate is highly ideological. Until the argument over greenhouse gas emissions is resolved scientifically it is too political an arena - far too uncertain to attract serious business investment.’

But Pascal was not to be put off.

‘I don’t see why at all. They are wasting time arguing about causation. Hardly anyone argues about climate change itself. It would be silly to. It is an oxymoron! Climate change has always been a reality. We have lived with it for centuries.’

‘Well, perhaps, but significant climate change, accelerated climate change, is new and it is just a hypothesis.’

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Pascal, who seemed to have turned into a lecturer. ‘Think of the Little Ice Age. It lasted from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries. It started when the pack ice began to grow in the Atlantic in the thirteenth century. By the fifteenth century thriving Norse settlements in Greenland were abandoned as the glaciers expanded and winters became unendurable. Think of the

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