Media

Climate Energy Finance Director Tim Buckley says China and America are investing in solutions to solve the climate crisis which include solar power. “It is staggering to see how much manufacturing activity is actually underway in 2023 and it’s been led by China,” Mr Buckley told Sky News Australia. “It’s great in many respects, we’ve got a climate emergency, but it’s great both China, America even Europe, Japan, Korea, India they’re all piling in, they’re all responding and they’re investing in solutions at a scale that actually could solve the climate crisis.” Read more

As the global output of solar panels increases, Australia is set to benefit from an electricity price fall of 10%, a report from the think-tank Climate Energy Finance calculates. The Solar Pivot report by analysts Tim Buckley and Xuyang Dong forecasts that “solar costs will halve again before 2030, underpinning an accelerating disruption of world energy markets and driving energy transition momentum”. Read more

The price for solar panels keeps dropping, and China is leading the deflation by a massive solar manufacturing buildout flooding the market. Tim Buckley says that we expect solar module prices to drop at least 10% annually over the rest of this decade as China triples its solar module production capacity by 2024 across the entire solar supply chain. Read more

CEF’s new Solar Pivot report sees unprecedented trade and investment opportunities, in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, for Australia to “ship sunshine”, embodying decarbonisation in its exports by using its solar and wind energy to process its world-leading critical minerals reserves, and to power manufacturing of energy transition materials. Australia has a once in a century opportunity for investment in renewables, exports, technology and employment, including in solar. It should seize it. Read more

A new report from Climate Energy Finance says booming solar investments is leading to a potential tipping point which could “dramatically accelerate the decline of the incumbent fossil fuel industry, and the decarbonisation of the world economy.” Read more

Tim Buckley details the global solar boom which is pushing down prices, and increasing manufacturing and installations on an unprecedented scale, foreshadowing a dramatic acceleration of the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy and bringing hope for climate. Read more

As CEF China energy policy analyst Xuyang Dong writes, renewables are now leading China’s newly added power capacity for the first time, even as new coal power plants continue to come online. During the first quarter of 2023, China added a record 50 GW of RE capacity. Read more

China Energy Policy Analyst Xuyang Dong argues: “Australia is being remade into an active and helpful middle power in its region with its own agency, constructively and strategically navigating its presence in the geopolitics of growing China-US rivalry.” Read more

Meanwhile, Xuyang Dong, a China energy policy analyst for Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance, said the Australian media’s hand-wringing over a possible war with China has clouded the country’s focus on the greater threat of climate change. “Diversifying Australia’s security strategy to encompass these concerns is inarguably important because China is no longer the only, or major, threat to the world, or to Australia,” Dong said on Tuesday. “Climate change and the energy crisis are clearly endangering Australia’s national interests now, and require more nuanced conversations to tackle.” Read more

Tim Buckley highlights progress on decarbonisation in India and China, noting, for example, that at the current rate of installs, China is on track to reach its 2030 renewables target of 1,200GW five years earlier with a possible plateauing of emissions this decade, ahead of the 2030 official peaking target. Read more

Tim Buckley comments on China’s leadership on decarbonisation in this positive international story on the progress being made to a better future. Read more

In his piece foreshadowing next month’s COP 27 and tracking global progress on decarbonisation, Nine/Fairfax environment editor quotes Tim Buckley on China: while it leads the world in coal use, it also leads in “wind and solar installation and manufacturing, EV production, batteries, hydro, nuclear, ground heat pumps, grid transmission and distribution, green hydrogen, literally every zero-emissions technology today.” Read more