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The International Energy Agency (IEA) has announced “the Age of Electricity” in its latest report – Electricity 2026 – which highlights the rapid growth of global electrification over 2020-2025, now forecast to accelerate to 3.6% per year growth to 2030. With electrification comes both energy independence and decarbonisation, as regions and countries the world over speed their transitions to meet economic and climate goals in an increasingly fraught geopolitical landscape. Two weeks ago, the UK government joined with nine northern European countries to sign the historic Hamburg Declaration to secure a massive 100GW of new offshore wind projects. This is designed to ensure Europe hasn’t freed itself from Russian fossil fuel capture only to allow US capture instead. Read more

Renewable generation supplied more than half of Australia’s electricity in the fourth quarter of 2025, driving wholesale power prices down by nearly 50% and coinciding with record battery output, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). Coal-fired generation fell 4.6% year on year to a record quarterly low, while gas-fired output dropped 27% to its lowest level in 25 years. Read more

The last few weeks have been an object lesson in the benefits of the transformation of our energy market, dispelling the myths promulgated by fossil fuel vested interests that increased renewable energy means more expensive power and reduced grid reliability. We have seen exactly the opposite of that: with increased extreme weather events including unprecedented heatwaves and devastating fires in southeast Australia, the grid has proven resilient under surging demand and stress, and now the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) confirms that increased renewables correlates with a significant decline in wholesale prices. Read more

The first shipment of high-grade iron ore from Guinea’s Simandou mine left port last month. In Conakry and Beijing it was celebrated as a milestone. For Australia, it should be read as a sign of how rapidly global energy and industrial supply chains are shifting. 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After increasing their coal production by 60% in the last financial year, Whitehaven Coal has quietly withdrawn their EPBC application for their Blackwater North coal mine extension project.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

China controls 80-90% of the global supply, holding vast reserves and dominates processing after investing early and strategically. But Australia has major skin in this game too. We have the world’s largest supply of lithium and abundant reserves of cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite and rare earths. Currently, our biggest customer is our #1 trade partner, with 90% of our lithium going to China. Now, Australia is being courted by the US as a potential key strategic partner in diversifying and securing its supply against the escalating backdrop of China-US tensions and retaliatory trade restrictions. Diversification of critical mineral supply chains will be high on the agenda in talks between Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump this week. Read more

This sends a clear signal to the international community about China’s sustained commitment to addressing climate change in line with the Paris Agreement. While the absolute reduction figure seems modest, China has a record of under-promising and over-delivering. For example, it surpassed its 2030 wind and solar power generation capacity target in July 2024, six years ahead of schedule. Over the last decade, it has systematically and rapidly implemented a transformative national plan of economy-wide decarbonisation through building the largest and fastest growing renewable energy system in the world while increasing its electrification rate at 10 percentage points per decade. Read more

Last week, BHP announced the axing of 750 jobs across its Queensland coking coal operations, including the mothballing of its Saraji South mine in the Bowen Basin and the strategic review of its FutureFit skills and training academy in Mackay as part of its efforts to alleviate cost pressures. This was the start of a chain reaction, with Anglo American announcing plans to cut nearly 300 jobs across its Queensland coal division, followed by QCOAL’s announcement of the closure of one of its two sites at the Cook Colliery mine in the days following. Read more

Climate Energy Finance (CEF) estimates that since the start of 2023, $75 billion of Federal Government funding and capital allocations have been made towards decarbonisation, electrification and the associated Future Made in Australia (FMIA) program, with another $6 billion of State allocations. Read more

The Albanese government will reportedly announce a new 2035 emissions reduction target this week. The pressure is now on. We have, for the first time, formal recognition from the government of the escalating risks of climate change and its devastating economic, health and social impacts in the form of the landmark National Climate Risk Assessment report. The picture it paints is apocalyptic. In line with the climate science, the Risk Assessment reports that future extreme weather is likely to present heightened risks to people, places and our way of life. Read more

The Albanese Government is reportedly set to announce its new National Determined Contributions ( NDCs) to 2035 this week – its emissions reduction targets under our Paris Agreement obligations. Today, the case for strong NDCs was definitively settled. The government’s National Climate Risk Assessment modelling paints a devastating picture of the economic, health and social impacts of climate change. Read more

CEF proposes that companies be required to reinvest any fuel tax credits above a $50 million annual cap into clean energy diesel alternatives, or forgo these credits (top FTC recipient companies currently claim hundreds of millions of dollars in credits annually). Fortescue, a major beneficiary of fuel tax credits, fully supports our proposal. This year alone, the scheme — a top 20 budget expense — is costing the public purse $11 billion, and this will climb to more than $13 billion a year by decade’s end. Republished from Renew Economy Read more