Media

For Beijing, there is a persistent worry that Chinese companies could find themselves shut out of the Australian market as business and economic matters increasingly become entangled with security issues. And those concerns intensified on Tuesday, after Albanese and Trump spoke about the possibility of the US granting Australia an exemption to its newly announced 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. Read more

Woodside Energy’s CEO Meg O’Neill sounded a self-serving alarm last week about the risks for Australia of the US’s new administration’s “drill baby drill” mantra, concluding that the ever-looming east coast gas supply shortage demands urgent government actions to accelerate gas exploration and development. Read more

Australia’s energy transition is progressing well, with renewable energy accounting for 46% of total energy by the fourth quarter of 2024, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). This places us more than halfway to our target of 82% renewable energy by 2030, with six years to go. Read more

Industry figures fear wariness at the Foreign Investment Review Board about Chinese-linked investment is hindering the flow of capital needed to advance Australia’s energy transition, slowing progress on new wind and solar farms and stalling acquisitions. A $813m deal by a unit of energy major BP to sell five solar farms to Beijing Energy International Holding is close to collapse as the buyer seeks to secure foreign investment approval. Read more

Some of the key highlights from this report are: Need for a clear embodied decarbonisation price signal in international trade, extending the EU ETS and CBAM with an Asian CBAM Iron ore and met coal exports from Australian mines in FY 2024 generated gross profit of A$120bn from the Asian Steel Sector, plus A$10 bn pa of royalties to each of WA and Queensland state governments. Read more

Australian manufacturing will be eroded and power to the sector switched off unless urgent action is taken to reduce barriers to gas investment, the boss of Australia’s biggest energy company warned. Woodside chief Meg O’Neill called for an end to “anti-gas rhetoric” and to scrap Victoria’s ban on certain onshore gas production over concerns supply shortages would hit economy. “The worry I have is when you get to a point where there’s not enough power to go around to meet the needs of all of the power consumers,” she told reporters following her address to the Melbourne Mining Club on Thursday. Read more

The Climate Capital Forum, a network of investors, industry, climate finance experts and philanthropists, are calling on the federal government to immediately pass the Production Tax Credit Legislation (PTC) during this sitting week. PTC incentives form the financial backbone of the Future Made in Australia package, with a pay on delivery model that ensures funding only goes out to industry once the product is successfully produced. Read more

Tim Buckley returns with Grant McDowell to guide us through Spark Club Podcast’s usual segments: Highlights, Lowlights, The Main Story, and What’s Coming Up. This episode kicks off with some positive news from the Middle East, where large-scale solar and battery storage deployments are setting new records. Tim also covers the $2bn Green Aluminium production tax credits, Labor’s 2025 ‘Build Australia’s Future’ plan, and impressive global numbers for large-scale BESS installations. Also discussed was China’s headline energy and economic growth numbers for 2024 Read more

This week, the global climate movement is in mourning. Under Trump’s reign of executive orders, not only has the US out of the Paris Agreement, but they’ve bulldozed a $300bln wind energy project pipeline and promised to desecrate the incredible climate progress under the IRA. Already, sceptical commentators are calling on Australia’s political contenders to follow suit, abandon climate concerns and double down on ‘bread and butter’ issues ahead of this election. But what they fail to realise, is the incredible opportunity this now presents for Australia. Read more

Excerpt from CEF Director Tim Buckley’s interview with Xinhua News about China’s leadership in the global energy transition Read more

Despite being the hottest year on record, 2024 saw a cooling in attitudes towards climate action, with the realpolitik of corporate profits sidelining environmental, sustainability and governance concerns. For some companies, the reality of taking steps to achieve their green targets was shoved into the “too hard”, “too expensive”, or “just plain irrelevant” baskets. Read more

On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump wasted no time dismantling his predecessor’s climate policies and promising a new era of fossil-fuel dominance. As promised, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, one of dozens of executive orders he signed in the hours after being inaugurated as the 47th president. Under Trump’s marker, the fossil fuel industry was promised new horizons and renewable energy industries were put in the back seat of the American economy. While it’s still not clear how many of these decrees will pan out as Trump intends, the consequences are likely to be felt across the world. Read more