Our work

Capital acceleration and systems change are driving the decarbonisation of Australia’s $10tn housing stock. With 80% mortgage market share, Australia’s big banks are the main entry point to stimulating private finance. Banks need to go beyond ~60% emissions reduction targets to accelerate electrification and energy efficiency. Read more

CEF and our colleagues Smart Energy Council, Rewiring Australia, Climate Energy Finance, Climate Capital Forum, Diplomats for Climate Dr John Hewson AM and former President, Australian Conservation Foundation, Mara Bun release an open letter today countering mis/disinformation and demonstrating why nuclear is not viable as an option for Australia in the time needed to tackle climate and energy challenges, as the LNP attempts to delay and distract from the renewables revolution. Read more

CEF assesses the 2019 A$400m Woolworths Green Bond qualified under CBI’s Low Carbon Buildings criteria and find that it is difficult to credit CBI’s certification of these uses of proceeds as “contributing to climate mitigation” at all. Green bonds are designed to be a source of private capital mobilisation to achieve the massive uptick in clean energy investments required this decade. Given the volume of investment required to fund global decarbonisation, it is imperative that investors can identify credible emissions reduction opportunities to support. In our view, incorrectly conflating the notion that both assets and activities “contribute to” climate change mitigation creates a market distortion where the issue of real emissions reduction is obfuscated. Read more

China entered COP28 with greater climate ambition than anyone else in the room. China showcases its robust commitment to renewable energy with 82% of October’s 23.8GW capacity additions being zero emissions, primarily solar. Despite not joining the global pledge to triple renewable energy by 2030, China is on track to peak CO2 emissions soon. COP28 saw the start of the loss and damage fund, the total pledged amount to address loss and damage reached $656m, with Australia investing zero capitals. This is far from enough as the loss and damage in developing countries is already greater than $400bn per year and expected to grow. Read more

Australia’s transition to net zero will require a significant amount of private and public investment. It is important that financial markets are well placed to finance this transition and therefore support the Government’s emissions reductions target. To assist this financing, the Government has proposed an ambitious and comprehensive Sustainable Finance Strategy. The Strategy will help mobilise the private investment needed in coming decades, enable Australian firms to access the capital needed to finance their own transitions and take advantage of new opportunities that arise, and ensure that the financial opportunities and risks presented by climate change are identified and well managed. The Strategy also recognises that markets are increasingly focussed on sustainability issues that extend beyond climate change. Read more

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There is consensus from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) that, in order to maintain the 1.5 degree pathway set out in the Paris Agreement, a tripling of renewables capacity to 11,000 GW by 2030 is required. According to the IEA, it is the single most important driver to keep 1.5C within reach. 90% of the renewable capacity growth would be from solar and wind, with wind capacity rising threefold from 2022 to 2030, and solar capacity fivefold. Put simply, this goal would be out of reach absent China’s massive green industrialisation of the last decade, the unprecedented acceleration of which underpins the financial viability of, and the market conditions to make possible, the global renewables revolution we need to see by 2030 if we are to avert the worsening climate crisis. Read more

Our new report, led by CEF China analyst Xuyang Dong, finds that China’s massive energy-focussed State Owned Enterprises (SoEs) are shifting their huge capital expenditure (capex) in line with the central government’s renewable energy and emissions reduction targets, dramatically accelerating decarbonisation of the world’s second biggest economy. Supported by SoEs’ capital investments into renewables, China has already met its 2025 target requiring that 50% of installed capacity is renewable energy, and this target is likely to be exceeded by a significant margin. China’s domestic CO2 emissions could also fall in 2024 with its record increase in installation of zero-emissions energy sources and a recovery in hydropower, combined with enormous gains in electrification of transport and electric vehicle (EV) adoption, foreshadowing a structural plateauing of China’s emissions well before the formal target of a peak before 2030. This spells structural decline for Australian coal exports, driving home again our need to pivot our economy to value-adding critical minerals and onshoring clean manufacturing. Read more

View Tim Buckley’s presentation on Renewable Energy-based Exports to Australian National University Energy Update seminar in November 2023: Overview of global energy transition, the gigantic lead of China, the impact of the US IRA and more. Read more

ANZ began reporting under its massive $100bn target to 2030 moving $8,8bn in 2H23, $0.74bn was on-balance sheet lending towards climate solutions (i.e. 8% of the total funded and facilitated). ANZ’s ratio of RE to fossil fuel energy is 0.15: 1 (i.e. $15 in renewables for every $100 in fossils) which needs to accelerate to a minimum 1: 4 by 2030 to meet global climate goals. While governance around energy transactions is improving, ANZ needs to commit to no new funding or facilitation of capital that enables fossil fuel expansion. This commitment must extend to finance for customers who expect to rely on CCS as an emissions reduction strategy where the IEA this month found CCS to be completely “inconceivable” and unviable. Read more

In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced China’s national climate target to peak CO2-e emissions before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Despite coal-fired generation capacity expanding in China into 2023, deployment of zero emission generation has significantly outpaced fossil fuels. We examine the aggressive scope 1-3 decarbonisation plans of four Chinese world leaders: CATL, LONGi, JinKO Solar and Trina Solar, far ahead of Australian corporate ‘leaders’ like BHP, Wesfarmers and BlueScope Steel. Read more

Leading clean energy and investor groups today applauded Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme to 32GW, a huge stepchange in ambition that will accelerate Australia’s clean energy transition and ensure energy affordability and reliability. See the joint statement CEF released with the Clean Energy Investor Group, representing renewable energy investors with ~11GW of installed capacity across ~70 power stations and a portfolio value of ~$24bn; the Smart Energy Council, the independent body for the Australian smart energy industry with more than 950 members, Nexa Advisory and Solar Citizens. Read more