Media

Via AAP and across 100+ mastheads Australia risks missing its environmental targets if it fails to win greater investment from China and should change its policies to avoid being left behind other nations. Reforms should include more transparency about foreign investment decisions, clean energy advocates have recommended, and a “green lane fast track” for strategic renewable energy investments. Think tank Climate Energy Finance issued the warnings on Monday in a report analysing China’s growing global investments in zero-emissions technology such as solar panels, batteries, hydro-electricity and green hydrogen. Read more

China’s US$180 billion in overseas clean tech investment since 2023 is driving the energy transition and bankrolling global supply chains, but its investment in Australia has collapsed with others benefiting as host countries for new industries and manufacturing, according to a report by Climate Energy Finance (CEF). Read more

Tim Buckley, director of Australian thinktank Climate Energy Finance (CEF), noted the actuaries recommend that national and state treasuries should review their analysis methodology to make sure that the costs and benefits of adaptation projects are fairly valued. “Adaptation cost and benefits are spread across stakeholders and whole-of-system resilience matters, so this will need to be led by the government serving the public needs overall, rather than relying on the private market to solve anything, given this is ultimately about outsourcing business costs onto everyone else,” Buckley said. Read more

After increasing their coal production by 60% in the last financial year, Whitehaven Coal has quietly withdrawn their EPBC application for their Blackwater North coal mine extension project. After already achieving approval from the state government, the extension project would have approved an additional 220 million tonnes of coal mining at the Queensland complex with plans to continue mining through 2085. When Whitehaven acquired the Blackwater mine from BHP in 2023, it explicitly stated in ASX disclosures that the mine’s potential life could extend for more than 50 years “dependent on prevailing local and macroeconomic conditions”. Read more

BESS deployments booming Batteries are the biggest disruptive force in global energy markets in 2025. Australia becomes world’s third-largest utility battery market. Rho Motion reports Grid-scale BESS market saw 12.7GWh of new capacity enter operations globally in October 2025, +29% y-o-y. Meanwhile, global YTD deployments have reached 156GWh, +38% yoy. China led new operational capacity with 8.8GWh of utility scale BESS added in the Oct 2025 month – double what Australia will do this year – including one giga-scale vanadium flow battery. Read more

Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley said those major exporters would be “terminally challenged” over coming decades as countries shifted to renewable energy to meet commitments under the 2015 Paris agreement. “This should send a strong reminder to Australia as the second largest exporter of thermal coal behind only Indonesia that our key trade partners are responding to climate science and their treaty obligations,” he said. Read more

Australia’s shift to renewable energy isn’t just cutting emissions, it’s also cutting costs for consumers. TIM BUCKLEY Founder, Climate Energy Finance “Solar has gone from being un-bankable to being now the preferred solution for utility scale and that is the battery energy storage disruption.” Read more

According to a new report by Climate Energy Finance (CEF), “Gas-based production of iron and steel in SA is entirely uneconomic, with gas prices there some of the highest in the gas-producing world.” And as readers of MWM well know (even if Matt Canavan doesn’t), our high gas prices are caused by the gas oligopoly’s siphoning of gas into export markets. Read more

There are only 24 hours left in the consultation process for staff at the country’s largest aluminium smelter to give feedback on plans for Tomago Aluminium’s future. Electricity accounts for more than 40 per cent of the facility’s operating costs… and as coal-fired and renewable energy prices rise, majority owner Rio Tinto says it doesn’t see a commercially viable future post 2028. While the federal and state governments consider bailouts, renewable energy organisations are calling for long-term solutions. Read more

Meanwhile, China is moving quickly. The latest report from the Climate Energy Finance think-tank calls China the world’s first “electrostate,” where industrial electrification is central to economic strategy. The country adds an average of 460GW of wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) per year, invests heavily in nuclear and battery storage, and is building a grid designed to handle industrial-scale electricity demand. Read more

Reminder for Australian climate commitments Tim Buckley, a director at think tank Climate Energy Finance, said Seoul’s intervention should give Australia pause for thought. “This should send a strong reminder to Australia as the second largest exporter of thermal coal behind only Indonesia, that our key trade partners are responding to climate science and their treaty obligations,” Mr Buckley said. Read more

The decision locks in the retirement of all 62 South Korean coal plants by 2040, including 22 units that had no phase-out schedule. South Korea relies on coal for more than 30 per cent of its electricity. Its 40-gigawatt coal fleet generates 60 per cent of its power-sector emissions – about 156 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. Kim Sung-hwan, South Korea’s minister of climate, energy and environment, said the pledge demonstrated the country’s commitment to “accelerating a just and clean energy transition”. Read more