That marks a change from two years ago. In its 2024 financial results, Fortescue named China a “core market” and pointed to the country’s “insatiable demand for green products” as it set out plans for an integrated Australia-China green metals supply chain. Other voices in the sector shared that view. Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, told PV Tech Premium last year that “the single biggest opportunity for Australia is to enhance and pivot our relationship with China”, arguing that exporting green iron instead of raw ore would also diversify the mining workforce. Read more

It comes as the federal government works to establish a framework that would require data centres to bring as much power into the electricity grid as they take. Australia’s largest proposed data centre could draw a quarter of Queensland’s energy use a model of a data centre The proposed $30 billion data centre in Queensland has a peak capacity comparable to the average power requirements of 1.5 million households. But who pays for that power production was a dilemma, according to Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley. Read more

Last week, in a landmark ruling the High Court upheld the NSW Court of Appeal’s invalidation of approval for extension of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine in the NSW Hunter Valley. Read more

A powerful coalition of industry, investor, climate, legal and public interest groups has declared that data centres must “Bring Your Own New Clean Energy” or households and businesses will pay. The rules must apply to all data centres in the development pipeline (including in the NT and QLD), bring genuinely new renewable energy online within three years of operation, and limit the role of offsets. Read more

Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley says while he has no problem with setting up rehabilitation bonds for renewables, he questions why the new industry should be held to a much higher level of account than the mining industry, “which for 200 years has got away with doing next to no rehabilitation.” “Governments have only taken responsibility for end of life assets because the fossil fuel industry has been brilliant at outsourcing that. “The fact that rehabilitation is only set at a quarter of the cost, is a failure to hold that industry to account.” “The mining industry has been exempt from polluter pays.” Buckley compares Vast Solar’s solar thermal site in New South Wales (NSW), yet to be cleaned up after a fire tore through it 10 months ago because liquidators are still untangling the assets, with coal mines intentionally shuttered years ago by viable companies that remain toxic pits. Read more

Climate Energy Finance director, Tim Buckley tells The Business, this case sets a precedent for considering the whole emissions profile of burning fossil fuels, including the exported emissions. Read more

Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance, spoke with ABC’s The World Today about the $200 million federal and Tasmanian government support package for Bell Bay Aluminium. He discusses the strategic importance of maintaining Australia’s aluminium smelting capacity, the critical role of affordable and reliable clean electricity, and the need for longer-term policy measures to keep Australian industry competitive as the global economy decarbonises. Read more

That 60% margin is not only unsustainable as the market shifts away from “dig and ship” to more sophisticated solutions. China will simply not allow it to continue, according to Tim Buckley, the director of Climate Energy Finance, an independent Australian think-tank. “At the end of the day, the bigger question is, does China allow [mining companies] BHP and Rio [Tinto] and Hancock to keep making obscene rates of return if they’re not investing in solutions that China wants?” Buckley told Dialogue Earth. “No business sector sustainably generates 60% returns on capital employed … if there isn’t a perfect moat around your business.” Could that moat be about to be breached? Read more

Highlights – Minister Bowen’s BYONCE for Data Centres The federal government and Energy Minister Chris Bowen have committed that data centre development approvals will be contingent on BYONCE – Bring Your Own New Clean Energy. The signs are promising –The Energy reports a consultation paper has been released by the federal government that confirmed that the Clean Energy Regulator would use the Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) scheme to ensure that data centres contract for renewable energy that is genuinely additional to existing sources and aligned with BYONCE. China’s total power generation growth slowed to 0.9% yoy in August 2026, while zero-emissions generation grew 8.8% yoy, more than offsetting demand growth and driving a second consecutive monthly decline in fossil fuel generation. Coal generation fell by 4.3% yoy. Solar remained the #2 generation source at 13.1% YTD, ahead of wind at 10.8%, while zero-emissions sources supplied 42.3% of total generation. 8 months into 2026, China’s national emissions continue to plateau, six years ahead of 2030. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of think tank Climate Energy Finance and a former managing director of global investment bank Citigroup, said “this iteration of the Coalition’s energy policy pamphlet belongs in the bin fire with every previous iteration”. “This will make the 2028 federal election yet another referendum on whether Australia will stay in alignment with the global consensus of the Paris Agreement and the climate science,” Buckley said. Read more

For Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance, community engagement is not a box to tick at the end of a project. It is fundamental to overcoming the approval barriers that are currently slowing investment in Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure. “Building social licence is critical to reducing the approvals roadblocks that are massively undermining the much-needed step-up in renewable energy infrastructure investments across Australia,” Buckley says. For Buckley, the case for accelerating the transition has become even stronger as global geopolitical instability highlights the importance of energy independence. Read more

Think tank Climate Energy Finance Director Tim Buckley said the “moribund joke of an energy policy” would derail considerable progress made on transitioning Australia to clean, cheap, reliable, firmed renewables and destroy the momentum on EV take-up, “This climate science denialism and fossil fuel lobby capture creates sovereign risk for Australia by massively increasing investor risks,” Buckley said. “Policy uncertainty, such as dumping net zero, reduces capital investment in our country, with less investment in our energy system in turn reducing new energy supply and raising energy costs for consumers and industry. And all to pander to the vested self-interests in the US administration.” Read more