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Mining superpower Australia on Thursday announced a US-style scheme to pour public money into manufacturing and clean energy industries, joining the global race to build a cleaner and more resilient economy.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled the “Future Made in Australia Act” to help compete with global partners who are providing massive subsidies to new industries. The act, to be discussed by parliament this year, would mark a departure from Australia’s decades-old free market policies on trade and investment. “We need to be willing to break with old orthodoxies and pull new levers to advance the national interest,” the centre-left Labor Party prime minister said. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of independent public interest think tank Climate Energy Finance, said the act would lay the foundations to make Australia a zero-emissions trade and investment leader and global clean energy “superpower”. About 27 percent of the Australian economic output came from exports to international partners and this new act would have flow-on effects and help them decarbonise as well, Buckley told AFP. “State intervention is the new competition. We can’t afford to ‘sit it out’. The Future Made In Australia Act puts Australia into the global race. It is the investment signal and de-risking private capital needs,” he said. But he said greater details were needed to ensure that local, state and federal governments worked together on ensuring the act was rolled out smoothly. Read more

In practice a production tax credit would generate a tax credit of perhaps 10 per cent, which could be offset against a company’s tax bill for qualifying downstream processing activities, or received as cash if the company was not generating profits. The head of the Climate Energy Finance think tank, former Citigroup managing director Tim Buckley said the government’s assertion that state intervention “is the new competition’’ was correct. “We can’t afford to ‘sit it out’,’’ Mr Buckley said. Read more

We need to get on the bandwagon or get left behind. The transition is happening. The world is moving on. If we don’t move with everyone, Australia will languish and stagnate. So what’s in this plan? Founder and director of Climate Energy Finance Tim Buckley is here. G’day, Tim. Good afternoon Jake. So how would you describe this plan in simple terms? This plan. is definitely Australia’s uniquely Australian response to the US Inflation Reduction Act. Without doubt. Read more

Great news today as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announces the Future Made in Australia Act, designed to deliver a uniquely Australian Response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which is turbocharging renewables, cleantech and reindustrialisation in the US as it mobilises massive private capital investment. To date, the Big 4 have established $385bn (and growing) worth of sustainable finance targets (SFT) that are, in part, aimed at contributing to climate change mitigation. It will be up to the banks to align their capital allocation and reporting to the new taxonomy from FY2025 and, crucially, to prioritise financing that achieves the objectives of the new Act. Read more

Syndicated across News Corp mastheads. The head of the Climate Energy Finance think tank, former Citigroup managing director Tim Buckley said the government’s assertion that state intervention “is the new competition’’ was correct. “We can’t afford to ‘sit it out’,’’ Mr Buckley said. “The Koreans, Japanese, EU, Indian and Canadian governments have all responded at scale to the massive once in a century challenge and opportunity of global decarbonisation with huge strategic public funding programs. “The ‘Future Made in Australia Act’ puts Australia into the global race already underway. “Public capital is the investment signal and de-risking that private capital needs to flood into domestic zero-emissions economic opportunities.’’ Read more

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled the “Future Made in Australia Act” to help compete with global partners who are providing massive subsidies to new industries. The act, to be discussed by parliament this year, would mark a departure from Australia’s decades-old free market policies on trade and investment. Tim Buckley, director of independent public interest think tank Climate Energy Finance, said the act would lay the foundations to make Australia a zero-emissions trade and investment leader and global clean energy “superpower”. About 27 percent of the Australian economic output came from exports to international partners and this new act would have flow-on effects and help them decarbonise as well, Buckley told AFP. “State intervention is the new competition. We can’t afford to ‘sit it out’. The Future Made In Australia Act puts Australia into the global race. It is the investment signal and de-risking private capital needs,” he said. Read more

As Yellen laid out plans to formalise dialogue with China over excess industrial capacity in electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels and batteries, saying Washington would not accept U.S. industry being “decimated”, the Chinese finance ministry issued a statement saying it had already “fully responded” to her concerns. One industry where global demand does not keep up with Chinese production, though, is solar. Xuyang Dong, China energy policy analyst at Climate Energy Finance in Sydney, estimates China’s wafer, cell and module capacity coming online in 2024 is sufficient to meet annual global demand now through to 2032. Read more

In 2023, China’s exports of the “new three” totalled 1.06 trillion yuan ($146.6 billion), up 29.9% year-on-year, official data showed. But they accounted for only 4.5% of China’s total yuan-denominated exports last year, so those on Beijing’s side of the debate see the West’s focus on them as hypocritical. Xuyang Dong, China energy policy analyst at Climate Energy Finance in Sydney, estimates China’s wafer, cell and module capacity coming online in 2024 is sufficient to meet annual global demand now through to 2032. (This is also republished on Business World) Read more

In a speech to Queensland’s Media Club, Albanese laid out the foundations of federal Labor’s plan to use taxpayer-funded incentives to advance the manufacturing and clean energy industries, including hydrogen, green metals, solar power and emerging renewables. “Albanese’s speech announcing the Act is ambitious and visionary,” said Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance and a former MD of Citigroup. “It has the makings of the foundation for our future as a zero-emissions trade and investment leader and global clean energy superpower, as we inevitably pivot from our historic dependence on carbon exports. Buckley says Albanese’s vision is to build on Australia’s existing strengths – and critically, also look beyond them – a point many “old-school economists” have so far failed to grasp. “Relying on traditional competitive advantage logic misses that the transition to net zero is a $US4-6 trillion annual investment opportunity globally for the next couple of decades… and one in which every major economy has invested massive national interest public capital,” Buckley said on Thursday. Read more

The news: Australia’s big four banks have allotted a minor share of their collective 2030 sustainable finance target (SFT) to financing renewable energy and hard to abate industries, according to new analysis by Climate Energy Finance (CEF). The numbers: The independent think tank’s report revealed that 7% of the big four banks’ collective $385 billion sustainable finance target was directed to financing renewable energy and hard to abate industries. Read more

Author of the analysis, CEF finance analyst Nishtha Aggarwal, said: “Our analysis shows the banks need to actively reorient their lending if they are to align their climate rhetoric with their capital flows. “They must put ‘their’ money where their mouth is. Trumpeting climate action based on the low hanging fruit of financing minimally green-rated buildings is not enough, and leaves them open to accusation of greenwashing. “The over-representation of fossil fuel interests on Australian banks’ boards is highly likely to undermine the credible pivot of climate finance. The banks should urgently remove the influence of these interests and recruit zero emissions expertise to drive credible net zero capital allocations to renewables and economy-wide decarbonisation. Read more