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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

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

New analysis released today by independent think tank Climate Energy Finance reveals only 7%* of the Big 4 banks’ collective $385bn sustainable finance target (SFT) by 2030 is directed to financing renewable energy and hard to abate industries, with the vast majority of their climate-related capital – between 44% and 72% – channelled into the low hanging fruit of business-as-usual ‘green buildings’ that meet minimum energy efficiency regulations. This pivotal finding demonstrates that there is an enormous gap in banks’ financing of emissions reduction in key sectors including energy, transport and hard to abate industries. It puts Australia behind in the race to capture the massive investment, trade and employment opportunities of the net zero transformation. Read more

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) Green (Buildings) Wash report has found three of Australia’s big four banks have channeled the bulk of their sustainable finance target (SFT) funds to date, to green buildings, which CEF said meet minimum energy efficiency regulations and leave the banks open to accusations of green washing. From the combined banks’ SFT allocations to date of $184 billion (USD 119 billion), just $12.4 billion, or 7%, has been assigned to the renewable energy or hard-to-abate sectors. Read more

China has by far the world’s biggest wind turbine production capacity, or 60% of 163 gigawatts (GW) in 2023, says Brussels-based industry association Global Wind Energy Council. China exported about $1.42 billion of turbines and components to the EU last year. The situation in China’s wind turbine sector is similar to that in the solar sector, with massive domestic capacity increases underpinned by extensive government support, said Xuyang Dong, China energy policy analyst at Climate Energy Finance in Sydney. “With a domestic supply glut and world leading technology, China will increasingly seek to export turbines.” Read more

Battery storage is the hot-spot in the Australian renewable energy transition right now, but it has barely touched the sides when looking at its potential. The so-called “Swiss Army Knives” of the renewable energy transition have learned how to make returns in some key parts of the grid, but much of their potential – long duration storage and specific services – remains difficult because either the market does not exist, or because of the lack of funding and support. Tim Buckley joins Giles Parkinson, Founder & Editor of Renew Economy, alongside Paul Curnow from Akaysha Energy and Daniel Burrows from Eku Energy. Read more

John Menadue Public Policy Journal: I joined a large audience in the North Sydney electorate on 4 April at a community forum that Kylea Tink called on “The future of our environment”. The message I took home was that the climate crisis is more urgent than ever. Its impacts are increasingly obvious. Roughly 90 percent of the mining industry in this country is foreign-owned. Not surprisingly, when last year was a year of record profits, it was also a year of record lobbying action. Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance, told the Sydney Morning Herald that profits from the export of $240 billion fossil fuels in 2022 led companies to “fund their lobbying efforts to delay climate action and protect their profits”. Read more