Clean Energy Finance has estimated that BHP received about $627 million in fuel tax credits in the 2024 financial year, Rio Tinto $416 million, Fortescue $309 million and Hancock Prospecting $128 million, which is paid as compensation for the taxes paid on diesel used on private roads. 4 Corners reported on Monday that leaked BHP documents showed the mining giant expected to cut emissions by just 1 per cent by 2030, and an internal memo warned its decarbonisation delays could pose a risk if there were “changes in diesel prices”, such as if the tax credit were “revoked”. Read more

China’s biggest steel maker, Baowu Steel Group, has set a goal of reducing its emissions by 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2035 and reaching net zero by 2050. Tim Buckley from think tank Climate Energy Finance said Australia had an important role to play in helping China decarbonise its steel industry. “Decarbonising the Chinese steel industry is the single biggest decarbonisation opportunity in the world,” he said. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, says the reduction in retail electricity prices coming at the same time as renewable energy penetration on the NEM reaches record high shares is “no coincidence.” “Amazing to see electricity price deflation being delivered in Australia in the middle of the latest fossil fuel war, with its resulting hyperinflation of global fossil fuel prices,” Buckley said on LinkedIn. Read more

A 7News segment examined BHP’s emissions reduction progress and questions around whether the company is on track to meet its climate commitments. BHP highlighted advances in electric mining equipment, while concerns were raised about projected emissions increases in the near term. The report also explored Western Australia’s energy transition, including the pace of renewable energy development, the state’s pathway to net zero emissions, and the need for greater investment in electrification and clean energy infrastructure. Read more

In May 2025, the company reported that “solutions are still being sought to achieve net zero”, although it has delayed its renewables rollout along with its adoption of electric trucks and trains. Tim Buckley of Climate Energy Finance has commented that BHP is not on track for its net zero 2050 goals and that its “ actions are not aligned with the science”. Read more

A major expose on ABC Four Corners last night, in collaboration with The Guardian, revealed for the first time irrefutable evidence of BHP reversing its commitments to meaningfully cut emissions in a credible timeframe at its world-dominant Pilbara iron ore business. The egregious walk-back, as the climate crisis escalates, was laid out in hundreds of pages of leaked internal company records. We’ve been saying it for years – BHP’s record of (in)action on clean energy and climate is pathetic and an indictment of its board and CEO leadership. And there it was in black and white. Read more

But, as Tim Buckley from Climate and Energy Finance explains, it is not what it seems. The Mandala report, for instance, fails to explain that Fortescue’s emissions are the result of the opening of a massive new mine and vastly increased production. It still has a target of cutting its emissions at these mines by 100 per cent in four years. The BHP calculation, however, includes the impacts of M&A activity, and the massive decarbonisation of its Chile mine in 2022 by renewable energy. Why is it BHP can do it way way back in 2022 in Chile but not in the decade to 2030 in the Pilbara?!” Buckley wrote on LinkedIn. “Hint – $620m pa is why!” Read more

What you can tell from these documents is that every time BHP was there ready to spend the money on the decarb program, it would baulk and the program would get delayed. Tim Buckley is a former stock market analyst who now runs thinktank, Climate Energy Finance. He lobbies government and industry for a faster transition to net zero. “We need to invest huge amounts of money in the Pilbara to transform it. That requires a whole lot of new re-skilling. It requires a whole lot of investment, and at the moment, BHP’s doing none of that.” Read more

BHP is fundamentally putting Australia’s emissions targets at risk,” said Tim Buckley of the thinktank Climate Energy Finance. “It’s the single biggest company in Australia, and its annual report shows its emissions going up between fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2030. It isn’t showing leadership and it is refusing to act on its own policy.” Read more

Tim Buckley, the director of the thinktank Climate Energy Finance, says the company’s climate transition plan mostly amounts to “marketing and greenwashing”. He says its emissions cuts to date have been largely due to two things: a significant renewable energy agreement in Chile in 2021, and the closure of an uncompetitive nickel mine in Western Australia. Its annual report forecasts that direct emissions from its operations will increase in the five years to 2030. “What they promise to do by 2050 is irrelevant,” Buckley says. “It’s what they do in the next five years that matters. “And they are doing next to nothing in Australia, and particularly the Pilbara.” Read more

Tim Buckley, from think tank Climate Energy Finance, said BHP was not currently on track to meet net zero operational emissions by 2050. “Their actions are not aligned with the science,” he said. BHP said its global emissions had already fallen 36 per cent since 2020. This is largely due to converting its Chilean copper mines to renewable energy. “BHP continues to focus on delivering our operational emissions target and long-term net zero goal,” the company said in a statement. Read more

BHP consumed 1.23bn litres of diesel and received $622m in fuel tax credits from the federal government in the 2025 financial year, according to analysis of data from Australia’s tax credit scheme. Tim Buckley, a director of the thinktank Climate Energy Finance, said BHP had doubled down on diesel trucks while backing a Minerals Council of Australia campaign against a proposal to limit fuel tax credit rebates to $50m a company each year. “I think BHP is not just ignoring change, they are actively trying to undermine any change,” he said Read more