Media

As Tim Buckley asks: What kind of game is AustralianSuper, the country’s biggest super fund, playing with Origin Energy? It is shaping up to scuttle a bid by Canadian fund manager Brookfield et al to acquire Australia’s largest power company, gentailer Origin Energy, and transition it to renewables and storage with a ~$30bn investment – a mammoth capital injection that will be transformative for Australian decarbonisation. What is AustralianSuper offering as its alternative plan? Higher electricity prices, slower decarbonisation and more climate destruction? If it kills the deal, will it step up and guarantee a $30bn commitment to decarbonising Origin? If not, why not? If it has no legitimate answer to these questions, it should get out of the way. Read more

CEF partner and advisory board member, Blair Palese, founder of the Climate Capital Forum, makes a powerful case for Australia to step up its transition investment ambition ahead of COP and in light of the US Inflation Reduction Act. Read more

Oped written by CEF’s China Energy Policy Analyst Xuyang Dong and Ember’s climate strategy advisor Chris Wright on China’s recent methane emissions reduction action plan. China’s recent methane action plan is a game-changer in the global effort to combat emissions. With commitments in its 2026-2030 Five-Year Plan, China is taking a lead in the methane reduction race. This announcement underscores Australia’s lag in implementing a clear methane action plan, despite being a significant emitter. As COP28 approaches, the diplomatic significance and China’s track record of exceeding targets highlight the urgent need for global methane reduction. Read more

Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned Australia could fail to meet its emissions targets without drastic change, and green refining of minerals before shipping overseas could be part of the solution. Tim Buckley told ABC that we need to get out of the mentality of Australia’s traditional dig-and-ship model. Now is the perfect opportunity to permanently rebuild manufacturing and refining capacity onshore. And we need to move faster with more ambition. We should build out capacity within the coming decade instead of 2050, before other countries have already established their own supply chains, or we will permanently miss out. Read more

Tim Buckley told ABC TV that we need to find alternatives to our dig and ship model, eg. do more value-adding refining of our resources onshore. By doing so, Australia can help our trade partners by exporting embodied decarbonisation. Buckley also said Jim Chalmers’ major address on Australia’s green energy and energy transition materials opportunity was overly cautious, and Australia’s response to the IRA should be tailored by Australia’s context and the huge scale of opportunity we have here to lead the world. Read more

The Albanese government has dumped plans to release a comprehensive US-style green energy industrial policy this year. Instead of meeting a pledge in last May’s budget to develop a plan before Christmas, Labor ministers are now working to a revised timeline that would see a more comprehensive response to Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) around the 2024 budget, in about six months. Tim Buckley told AFR that “they need to provide a policy framework. At the end of the day, when America throws $1 trillion on the table in subsidies, and you’re competing against China, when you leave it to the free market you miss out.”“We need to get more projects off the ground, faster.” “The government is moving in the right direction but not fast enough, and they don’t have the political mandate to act with the courage they really need.” Read more

Victoria’s State Electricity Commission (SEC) has been reintroduced in a move that is hoped will crowd-in investment into renewables in the state. Tim Buckley told FS Sustainability that some are concerned that public capital may crowd out private capital. “The key challenge that the SEC has to actually work to crowd in private capital,” Buckley said. “I think that risk is real, but it’s more than outweighed by the benefits to the people of Victoria.” He sees renewables as a “solution to the cost-of-living crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis… More competition means more supply and lower prices.” Read more

Origin’s vertical integration business model is key to the Brookfield acquisition bid, according to Tim Buckley. He said that the retail and industrial client base was key to Brookfield both in the Origin bid and in the 2022 bid for AGL led by Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures and Brookfield. “All of this is predicated on the value of the retail customer base that Origin and AGL have,” Buckley noted. “That customer base is about vertical integration and industrial customers as well. “The key asset for Origin is they have the best retail technology platform in the world.” Read more

Our op ed on PM Albanese’s state visit to the US. While the visit was touted as a platform for major announcements on investment into an Australian response to the game-changing Inflation Reduction Act, there was a lot of talk, but only $2bn for Australian critical minerals – entirely insufficient relative to the scale of our opportunity to lead the world in processing of minerals onshore. Read our full analysis. Read more

Tim Buckley wraps PM Albanese’s state visit to the US and the need for a more ambitious strategic public capital commitment to leverage the opportunities of the US IRA, noting the $2bn additional commitment to critical minerals announced is insufficient relative to our massive opportunity as the world’s #1 exporter of lithium and does not adequately respond to the scale and pace of global decarbonisation. Read more

Tim Buckley told ABC News that the $2bn announcement by the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese into the sector through low-interest loans for miners and processors is a token response. The US has put US$1,000bn on the table to drive investment in the decarbonisation. Australian government needs to place $100bn public capital support to crowd in the decarbonisation sector, as we need to respond at the speed and scale to the size of the opportunity. Read more

Tim Buckley told ABC news that tens of billions of dollars would be needed to set up an onshore renewable battery industry in Australia, to develop the entire supply chain in Australia from critical minerals, to processing and batter assembly, and ideally EV assembly in Australia as well. Read more