A new report by eminent environmental scientist Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, commissioned by Lock the Gate, finds that direct methane emissions from fossil fuel facilities make up ~70% of total greenhouse gas emissions covered under the federal Safeguard Mechanism (SGM), when the global warming impact is calculated over 20 years. The report also finds that the use of carbon credits to offset methane, as allowed under the safeguard, is not technically feasible, and more rigour is urgently needed, such as Zali Steggal’s proposed cap on methane within the scheme, Read more

The IPCC’s latest report this week again sounded the alarm that the window to avert climate catastrophe is closing. But there is hope. On the positive side of the ledger, Tim Buckley breaks down the huge policy and investment shifts that are driving a massive uptick in energy transition, including the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU’s Net Zero Industry Act. Read more

In this online presentation Teal MP Allegra Spender and CEF’s Tim Buckley engage in a discussion breaking down Australia’s climate policy and its key centrepiece, the Safeguard Mechanism designed to drive down emissions by Australia’s 215 biggest polluters. Read more

AEMO’s assertion in its Gas Statement today that we need more new supply to offset purported imminent shortages is bizarre and counterintuitive. There is no shortage, just a cartel with a chronic shortage of ethics extorting Australians as they export the majority of domestic production and rake in obscene war profits. It should be a major priority for AEMO to provide rule modernisations incentivising new technologies to rapidly decarbonise our grid and decouple from extortionate, polluting, volatile fossil fuels. Read our take. Read more

Tim Buckley talks to AEMO’s ESOO noting that its statement there is a shortage of gas is bizarre when production has tripled in the last 10 years, and the only shortage is an ethics deficit from the extortionate multinational gas cartel extracting superprofits as they export Australia’s sovereign resources and smash Australians with energy price hyperinflation. Read more

As the Australian Energy Regulator announces a projected 20% rise in retail electricity prices from July 1 – a hike which would have been closer to 40-50% had the Albanese government not intervened to cap domestic wholesale coal and gas prices in December last year – we look at the causes and solutions of the energy price crisis. Read more

Tim Buckley comments on the Japanese government sinking $2bn into a coal gasification to hydrogen project in Victoria: “Last time I checked, there won’t be a ship ready to transport hydrogen in the next decade… it looks like they are pushing carbon capture storage and hydrogen shipping – neither of which are proven technologies. If the Japanese government want to commit $2bn into an unproven pilot facility, good luck to them, but I don’t want to see a huge amount of taxpayer money going into a project that is designed to promote the extension of more high emitting coal gasification technologies that have continually failed to work globally.” Read more

Tim Buckley: “I’m forecasting 10 per cent annual module price reductions over the next decade. Module prices are falling — and the speed of the fall is accelerating” as the number of solar panel manufacturing facilities being built in China dramatically escalates. Global solar PV annual production capacity will triple by the end of the year, with most of the new capacity in China. Read more

Two years ago, PM Modi vowed that half India’s energy needs would come from renewables by 2030, and Adani unveiled plans to spend US$70bn on green investments, such as batteries, solar and green hydrogen. Post the Hindenburg report allegations, Tim Buckley said: “The Adani Group is unlikely to be able to access any material amount of new capital to complete the proposed green-investment pipeline beyond the existing new facilities already financed and under development”. Read more

Tim Buckley on Adani’s deal to sell power from its Godda plant to Bangladesh: “This appears to be the most expensive, lopsided contract to replenish the pockets of the ex-richest man in Asia, at the expense of the people in Bangladesh.” Read more

On the purchase by a little known Australian investor, with Indonesian partners, of two coal mines divested by BHP, Tim Buckley notes: “Divestment by credible leading Australian companies to far-less accountable Indonesian family-controlled companies, in isolation, does little to solve the climate crisis. On the positive, it does progressively starve the fossil fuel sector of capital and acknowledges the fossil fuel sector’s progressive loss of a social licence to operate.” Read more

Tim Buckley speaks to CEF’s new critical minerals report, which details how the massive acceleration in the global energy transition is increasing demand for critical minerals, presenting a multihundred billion dollar opportunity for Australia to leverage its rich reserves and lead the world in production, processing and manufacture. Read more