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In selling the budget’s energy policies, Jim Chalmers says they provide more fuel security for drivers and industry while also continuing support for electric vehicles and biofuels. But the budget has disappointed energy and climate change experts and advocates, who say Australia could miss its renewable energy targets. Read more

An Australian energy expert said China has shown strategic vision in the new energy sector, promoting clean energy technologies through the development of multiple new energy industries, reducing reliance on traditional fossil fuels, and strengthening energy security and independence. He said this is one of the reasons China has become a world leader. Read more

“A glaring omission in this budget was the failure yet again to reform fossil fuel taxes and subsidies. Against the backdrop of the global fossil fuel shock and cost of living crisis, the government had the opportunity to introduce a 25% levy on gas exports to ensure a fair return to Australians as the war hyperinflates gas prices. Instead, it buckled to appease the war-profiteering gas industry. Likewise, the failed PRRT, which will deliver just $1.6bn pa over the next four years, was untouched. And the unsustainable impost of the $11bn pa diesel Fuel Tax Credit Scheme, the key beneficiaries of which are mining majors, sailed through unscathed. Read more

All in all net new funding of about $10 billion has been provided for lowering emissions across the economy and enabling energy transition in this budget and the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, mostly through the $7.2 billion cheaper home batteries scheme but also via agencies such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, National Reconstruction and Net Zero funds. This is “a good start, but we need to be more ambitious yet, the cost of climate inaction is simply too extreme,” says Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance. Read more

CEF partner, advisory panel member and founder of Climate Capital Forum Blair Palese in Canberra Times and 100+ mastheads via AAP While the measures were welcome, the budget lacked big-ticket changes capable of speeding up Australia’s transition to renewable energy, such as a gas export levy or changes to electrify heavy transport, according to Climate Capital Forum founder Blair Palese. “For a world in transition, this budget sends a message that Australia is still stuck in the past,” she said. “It has missed the opportunity to send a strong signal to clean energy investors that Australia is growing its clean energy commitments and setting the conditions for them to invest in renewable energy projects, jobs and green industrial capability.” Read more

Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley – while noting the $60 billion of decarbonisation and Future Made in Australia funding initiatives put in place over the last four Chalmers budgets – says this is a “glaring omission” in the context of the global fossil fuel shock and cost-of-living crisis. “The government declined to introduce a proposed 25 per cent gas exports levy at a moment when prices are hyperinflated by Trump’s war in the Middle East, a reform which could have delivered $17 billion annually to the Budget and funded cost of living relief,” Buckley said on Wednesday. Read more

Tim Buckley from Climate Energy Finance sets out a mixed assessment of the Federal Budget on climate and energy. Buckley frames the Treasurer’s approach as a difficult balancing act between fiscal conservatism and competing policy objectives, and argues that fairness and intergenerational equity receive insufficient attention. He welcomes the reform of discretionary trusts, describing the move to a 30% tax rate on 880,000 trusts as a courageous step that targets high‑end wealth. Read more

There are clear financial incentives for global mining giants to borrow in yuan, according to Tim Buckley, director of the Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance. With China’s inflation rate hovering between 0 per cent and 1 per cent in recent years, while Australia’s was “currently at 3-5%”, longer-term interest rates are “materially higher” in Australia, Buckley explained. “So borrowing at 3.8% pa allowed Fortescue to repay its existing Australian dollar and US dollar borrowings of 6%,” he said. “On US$2 billion of borrowing, this saved Fortescue US$44m annually off their interest bill.” 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

After substantial recent investment in accelerating Australia’s renewable energy transition and green industrialisation – principally via the Albanese Government’s flagship Future Made in Australia (FMIA) program – the 2026 Federal Budget released last night lacked any big-ticket new commitments to grow our national ambition to become a renewables superpower and zero-emissions trade and investment leader, and featured some reduction of previously announced funding. The Budget saves $1.3bn over 10 years from redirecting part of the $19.7bn 2024–25 Budget measure for FMIA, and $1.9bn is rightly cut from Hydrogen Headstart. Read more

Climate Energy Finance director Tim Buckley supports the move, noting that data centres could trigger a new wave of energy projects and spur on investment from other firms if given clear renewable energy requirements. “It’s been really important that the federal government has said we want you to solve the problems you’re creating before we approve your projects,” Buckley says in a separate report published on Renew Economy, here. “They can be clearly told if you bring your battery, your solar and your wind project and your (desalination) plant with you, the chance you’re getting approved is really high. Read more

Queensland continues its streak of naysaying when it comes to the planned new Electricity Services Entry Mechanism (ESEM), the CIS replacement measure recommended by the National Electricity Market (NEM) Read more