Media

NSW stood to gain almost $265 million from the US-Iran-Israel war, with the 2026-27 budget revising royalties up by $84 million in 2025-26 and $186 million in 2026-27. Pollard attributed this to higher thermal coal prices that stemmed from disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz, which directly affected oil and petrochemical derivatives but also coal, which is benchmarked against Brent Crude prices. Read more

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey was unequivocal on the central role of energy transition in economic growth and prosperity. Mookhey emphasised that the renewables transition is a top driver of investment into the state, with renewable energy infrastructure a significant contributor to the 20% surge in investment over the year to the March quarter 2026. Read more

Data centre proponents could lose social licence to operate far faster than has in some cases happened in the electricity sector, given the scale and speed of proposed developments. Climate Energy Finance (CEF) and our partners at the Carbon Zero Initiative are calling for a set of binding public interest principles that would shape the emergence of the data centre sector in Australia. Read more

The Noosa Power & Energy Conference convenes June 15-16 at Peppers Resort, Noosa Heads – a working forum to assess the state of play in the energy transition and what’s required to bridge the gap to 82% renewables. Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance Australasia: “The picture is not all doom and gloom. Private households have invested almost $10 billion in just 11 months to deploy over 400,000 home battery systems. It is amazing to see the scale of deployment, showing we can mobilise the skilled workforce needed at speed when the pricing and incentives align. Australia simply needs to go faster.” Read more

Australia’s smelters will keep needing taxpayer bailouts unless governments create a publicly backed clean energy model that can deliver reliable, affordable power for heavy industry. Read more

Tim Buckley, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, a think tank focusing on Australia’s green transition, told China Daily that it is “critical we work with China and learn from the best technology in the world”. “I’m amazed by the robotic advances,” he said. “Australia worries about our high cost of labor, you don’t have that problem in China because you’re building the world’s best robots, which means we can learn from China about robotics, engineering and supply chains, and partner together.” Read more

The ABC Business segment reports that the Middle East conflict and resulting oil supply disruptions have intensified concerns about fuel security and rising diesel costs, prompting many Australian businesses to accelerate plans to electrify their operations. Read more

The explosion of batteries on the market means energy can be stored and released during what would otherwise be peak time and cost of electricity usage. That has had a major impact on the broader electricity grid, Climate Energy Finance’s Tim Buckley said. “We just saw from the Australian Energy Market Operator that batteries are now setting the price of electricity upwards of 30 per cent of the time,” Mr Buckley said. Read more

On 9 June at the Hawthorn Arts Centre, Melbourne, Dr Ryan was joined in conversation by renowned global energy analyst Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance and an expert in green energy finance, markets, and risk. The discussion explored how Australia could pivot towards energy self-sufficiency in its transport, agricultural, manufacturing, and mining industries while minimising dependence on fragile fossil fuel supply chains. They also examined whether the US–Israel–Iran conflict could serve as an impetus for Australia to rapidly electrify its economy. Read more

Tim Buckley, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, a think tank focusing on Australia’s green transition, told China Daily that it is “critical we work with China and learn from the best technology in the world”. “I’m amazed by the robotic advances,” he said. “Australia worries about our high cost of labor, you don’t have that problem in China because you’re building the world’s best robots, which means we can learn from China about robotics, engineering and supply chains, and partner together,” he said. Read more

China leads the world in almost all zero-emissions industries of the future, be that solar, wind, hydroelectricity, smart grids, very fast rail, batteries, electric vehicles and nuclear. China’s leadership extends to the global upstream mining and processing of critical minerals and strategic metals supply chains that enable these cleantech industries. China leads the world when it comes to research and development, manufacturing, domestic deployments, exports and increasingly, in outbound direct foreign investment across all of these cleantech sectors. Read more

Tim Buckley, founder and dir­ector of the Aus­tralian think tank Cli­mate Energy Fin­ance, told China Daily that the ABS fig­ures showed that the fuel pres­sures were hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on Aus­tralian busi­nesses and con­sumers, “both dir­ectly, and indir­ectly” due to the rise in gen­eral infla­tion and the res­ult­ing increase in interest rates. The Reserve Bank of Aus­tralia raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.35 per­cent in May, its third con­sec­ut­ive rate hike this year. “Busi­ness con­fid­ence has taken a hit, and eco­nomic activ­ity is facing a sig­ni­fic­ant head­wind as a res­ult,” Buckley said, adding that the Middle East con­flict could con­tinue for a long time. Read more