Media

NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey was unequivocal on the central role of energy transition in economic growth and prosperity. Mookhey emphasised that the renewables transition is a top driver of investment into the state, with renewable energy infrastructure a significant contributor to the 20% surge in investment over the year to the March quarter 2026. Read more

Data centre proponents could lose social licence to operate far faster than has in some cases happened in the electricity sector, given the scale and speed of proposed developments. Climate Energy Finance (CEF) and our partners at the Carbon Zero Initiative are calling for a set of binding public interest principles that would shape the emergence of the data centre sector in Australia. Read more

Australia’s smelters will keep needing taxpayer bailouts unless governments create a publicly backed clean energy model that can deliver reliable, affordable power for heavy industry. Read more

China leads the world in almost all zero-emissions industries of the future, be that solar, wind, hydroelectricity, smart grids, very fast rail, batteries, electric vehicles and nuclear. China’s leadership extends to the global upstream mining and processing of critical minerals and strategic metals supply chains that enable these cleantech industries. China leads the world when it comes to research and development, manufacturing, domestic deployments, exports and increasingly, in outbound direct foreign investment across all of these cleantech sectors. Read more

A major expose on ABC Four Corners last night, in collaboration with The Guardian, revealed for the first time irrefutable evidence of BHP reversing its commitments to meaningfully cut emissions in a credible timeframe at its world-dominant Pilbara iron ore business. The egregious walk-back, as the climate crisis escalates, was laid out in hundreds of pages of leaked internal company records. We’ve been saying it for years – BHP’s record of (in)action on clean energy and climate is pathetic and an indictment of its board and CEO leadership. And there it was in black and white. Read more

The federal budget increases investment in emissions reduction, batteries and clean energy infrastructure, but leaves major fossil fuel tax concessions and gas industry profits largely untouched. Read more

Climate Energy Finance’s new report, Green Metal Statecraft: Policy, Investment and Technology Trends in the Green Iron Evolution, provides an update of the global and domestic investment, technology and enabling policy trends that will underpin the transformation of the iron and steel value chain in 2026. This report highlights that for every step forward on an individual project or market-level, the broader investment pipeline has just as many case studies of project delay, cancellation, and restructure in the face of unresolved structural headwinds. Read more

The now six-week-long conflict in the Middle East continues, massively disrupting global energy supplies with no end in sight. This underscores the energy security risk to Australia of its extreme dependency on imported oil and resulting exposure to international fossil fuel shocks in an increasingly geopolitically unstable world. The significant implications for national economic resilience are already apparent, with a fuel supply crunch and elevated foreign oil prices driving a cost of living crisis, inflationary pressures and surging interest rates here. At the time of writing, the Hormuz Strait, the critical chokepoint for 20 per cent of the world’s oil, including the Asian supply chains we rely on, remains blocked. Read more

In March 2026, Australian unions called for Australians to get a more equitable share of the massive windfall profits that are now flowing to multinational oil and gas corporations profiting from the Trump Administration’s renewal of resource imperialism. The ACTU has urged the Federal Government and Treasurer Jim Chalmers to replace the flawed petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) with a 25 per cent revenue-based export levy on the sale of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Australia. This is hardly a radical proposition. The call has been supported by shadow minister for industry Andrew Hastie. Last week saw Matt Comyn, the CEO of Commonwealth Bank – Australia’s largest bank – throw his support behind a new exported gas levy gas or PRRT reform, highlighting that the time has now come for the nation to profit from its vast gas reserves, and urging the Albanese Government to ‘push the boat out’ and publicly back reform. Read more

China now installs more wind turbines, solar panels and batteries than the rest of the world combined. It is the world’s largest producer of batteries and electric vehicles. It holds 95 per cent of global rare earth refining capacity, 90 per cent of battery anode production, and dominates virtually every other component of the clean energy supply chain. In December 2025 alone, 54 per cent of all truck sales in China were battery electric. This is long-term strategic planning and green energy statecraft paying dividends. Read more

The US/Israel war on Iran is the latest geopolitical disruption to trigger a domestic cost-of-living crisis. Petrol and diesel prices are soaring, and the pain is spreading through mortgage rates, grocery bills, and falling super balances as markets slumps. This is no longer just a pump-price issue; it is a systemic shock to the Australian economy, repeating the fossil fuel hyperinflationary hit we all collectively suffered with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is time for Australia to focus and value energy independence. Read more

As Climate Energy Finance’s latest report out this week, Raw Power, highlights: the world’s overwhelming decarbonisation leader, China, is rolling out a structural, state-directed strategy to secure dominance of global supply chains underpinning the emerging zero emissions world economy. Since 2023, Climate Energy Finance has tracked over $US120 billion in global investments and projects by Chinese firms into resource mining and upstream processing, including critical metals to the energy transformation in lithium, nickel, copper, high-grade iron ore, and bauxite, as well as rare earths and minerals for national security interests. Read more