Good morning, Hubsters. Craig McGlashan in London here with the Wire. With much of the US and Europe enduring a heatwave and the US and Australia this week signing a joint partnership to boost zero emissions technology, the battle against climate change has never felt more acute. Private equity is also helping fund the journey to net-zero, in what is “a great opportunity for investment,” Natalie Adomait, managing partner at Brookfield Asset Management, told PE Hub’s Obey Martin Manayiti today. Immense amount of capital. Brookfield closed its $15 billion Global Transition Fund last month and has already deployed approximately $2.5 billion to projects in North America and Europe. Among them are ones focused on solar power, battery technology and carbon capture and storage. Three core themes will guide the fund: business transformation; clean energy; and efforts to decarbonize. You can read the whole interview here. Healthy interest. Elsewhere on PE Hub today, Aaron Weitzman spoke in depth with Court Square Capital Partners managing partner David Nguyen for the latest in our series profiling healthcare investors. While healthcare investment is becoming a crowded area for the private equity sector, Nguyen was keen to stress ways in which Court Square differentiates itself. Find out more about Court Square’s healthcare strategy here. Friend-shoring. Over here in Europe, I was chatting to a partner at a PE firm who bemoaned that globalization is losing ground to populist, country-first movements such as America First and Brexit. Speaking on background, he said his firm had stopped looking at the UK for investments, as the barriers Brexit created meant that trying to merge UK companies with firms in the EU had become too big a headache. That’s why I was interested to see a report from EY yesterday that pointed to a trend in M&A of “friend-shoring”. I’d love to hear from our readers on this. Is globalization truly on the decline, or just becoming more selective? Drop me a note with your thoughts. Before I sign off, I want to mention that this afternoon, my colleagues in New York MK Flynn and Tara Lindenbaum are attending the 5th Annual Exchange, hosted by Exponent, a collective of senior women dealmakers. MK will moderate a Fireside Chat with Kristin Johnson, managing director, Alamont Capital Partners; and Shelli Taylor, CEO, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a dine-in movie theater chain and streaming service backed by Altamont. They'll be discussing how Altamont has helped guide Alamo through the challenges of the past two years. That’s it from me – PE Hub's Aaron Weitzman will be here tomorrow to take you through to the weekend. Cheers, Craig Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub ... | 