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“The Chinese companies are ready to go,” says Tim Buckley, director at Climate Energy Finance. “But they’re waiting on clarity around incentives, and a signal they’re welcome.” Treasury has confirmed that private Chinese firms like CATL, BYD and Trina Solar face no restrictions under FIRB rules – though state-owned enterprises remain sensitive. Still, Buckley warns, “we need to partner with them, bring in their robotics, and leverage our low-cost energy future”. Read more

Tim Buckley highlights the immense opportunity and risk for Australia in the global push for green steel. As the world’s […] Read more

Caroline Wang from Clean Energy Finance, a think tank, highlighted that China leads the world by a “staggering margin” when it comes to many energy transition sectors, such as electric vehicles and solar panels. She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that for Australia to meet its emission reduction targets and build a green industrial capacity, China will be an essential partner as Australia needs access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability. Read more

Highlights Our first highlight – the Capacity Investment Scheme. South Australia’s high RE % record Green Steel subsidies from South Korea US invests MP Materials a US Rare Earths materials Read more

Caroline Wang from Climate Energy Finance says China will be an indispensable partner China leads the world in renewable energy deployment and all other aspects of the energy transition by staggering margin in the two days in may this year China installed an amount of renewables that is astralia installed in the whole of 2024 she says labour’s ambitions to boost the green manufacturing will also depend on collaboration with China we need access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability to do that that’s the kind of chronic pragmatic collaboration that is already happening in other parts of the world it’s a difficult balancing act which isn’t going to get any easier. Read more

She says that means China will be indispensable to reducing emissions in Australia, and to the government’s ambitions to build its own green industrial capacity through the Future Made in Australia plan. “We need access to Chinese technology and Chinese industrial capability in order to do that,” Ms Wang says. “That’s the kind of pragmatic cooperation that’s already happening in other parts of the world and that Australia can look to.” Read more

In China, more wind turbines and solar panels were installed last year than in the rest of the world combined. And China’s clean energy boom is going global. Chinese companies are building electric vehicle and battery factories in Brazil, Thailand, Morocco, Hungary and beyond. Read more

“Just staggering,” wrote Tim Buckley, head of Climate and Energy Finance. “China installed 92.9GW of solar and 26.3GW of wind in just the month on May 2025! “ Before we get too excited, there is a pull-forward on installs with a national strategic policy change on renewables that took effect from June 2025 – so we see a real risk of a significant slowdown for the rest of 2025. Read more

China leads the world by a huge and growing margin across almost all of the frontiers of our decarbonised future, from sophisticated clean tech manufacturing to domestic renewable energy installations to foreign direct investment into the energy transition. In April alone, China installed over 45GW of solar power capacity, more than Australia’s entire solar fleet. Read more

The Highlights * Tim’s TED X Sydney * Net-Zero Export Target Proposal: ANU’s Frank Jotzo and Annette Zou * Heavy Equipment Decarbonisation: BHP signs MoU with China’s XCMG * China’s Cleantech Outbound Investment (OFDI): China building cleantech infrastructure abroad (e.g., 10GWh EV battery plant in France for Renault). $170B tracked in cleantech OFDI since 2023 Read more

On a recent delegation, I saw the futuristic factory of solar giant Longi in Jiaxing, with its omnipresent robots, combining automation, big data, AI and 5G to flexibly customise solar module components for diverse application scenarios and customers, revolutionising advanced manufacturing at massive scale. This is not an isolated case. China leads the world by a huge and growing margin across almost all of the frontiers of our decarbonised future, from sophisticated clean tech manufacturing to domestic renewable energy installations to foreign direct investment into the energy transition. Read more

Tim’s Expert view published on The Energy Co: “Australia is absolutely walking both sides of the street, as we saw with the Albanese government’s approval of a 40 year extension on the North West Shelf gas processing plant. We are still a major, top three fossil fuel exporter. The incumbent industry is still very powerful politically in Australia, and that undermines Australia’s long term strategic national interest, in my view. Read more