Media

This damaging policy reversal undermines what was formerly Queensland’s national leadership in building out large-scale renewable energy and storage, and its record uptake of rooftop solar, just as the climate emergency escalates and in the context of a national cost of living crisis driven by skyrocketing fossil fuel energy bills. Read more

Climate Energy Finance founder Tim Buckley, who was not involved in the report, said the death of coal has been called many times but now the numbers are showing the “beginning of the end”, particularly as the Chinese solar and wind juggernaut continues. “It’s going to be a slow death for coal,” he said. “It’s not a decline, it’s a plateau, so it’s not going to be rapid.” The implications for Australia “are profound”, Buckley said, with the country’s economic policy seemingly built on the assumption its Asian trading partners would make no serious efforts to transition their economies to renewables. “We don’t as a country realise the magnitude of the threat to our key exports today and our government continues to sleepwalk on the resources curse,” he said. Read more

This week, the global climate movement is in mourning. Under Trump’s reign of executive orders, not only has the US out of the Paris Agreement, but they’ve bulldozed a $300bln wind energy project pipeline and promised to desecrate the incredible climate progress under the IRA. Already, sceptical commentators are calling on Australia’s political contenders to follow suit, abandon climate concerns and double down on ‘bread and butter’ issues ahead of this election. But what they fail to realise, is the incredible opportunity this now presents for Australia. Read more

Tim Buckley on the Energy Transition Show podcast on China’s stunning transition and decarbonisation progress in Australia and India: Read more

Tim Buckley responds to the IEA Renewables 2024 report: “Thanks largely to China, we now have the global cleantech manufacturing capacity to accelerate deployments of renewables significantly to achieve the goal set at last year’s UN Climate Conference to treble renewables to 2030. The massive deflation of prices for renewables technologies and the drive for energy security both favour accelerating investment as the world looks to mitigate the escalating climate crisis of climate change.” Read more

Energy analysts, including Tim Buckley, say Origin needs to reveal how it will remain a major generator of power if it is to meet a customer book totalling about 4.5 million people. Read more

As Tim Buckley and AM Jonson write the record high of low-cost wind and solar in the grid comes as we are still waiting for the Coalition’s budget projections on its plan to nationalise the eye-watering cost of seven nuclear plants. Read more

Coal generated less than 50 percent of Australia’s electricity in the last week of August, dropping to a record low as renewable production surged, data showed Wednesday. Australia remains one of the world’s leading exporters of coal and gas and has relied heavily on fossil fuels to keep the lights on. But climate finance expert Tim Buckley said August’s record figures were caused by wild weather and a warm start to the spring, which had reduced demand on the grid by up to 20 percent. Winds exceeding 150 kilometres (93.2 miles) per hour in the southeast of the country had also almost doubled the usual wind generation. “It’s a historically low coal share for Australia in the national energy market, but it’s also a sign of where we are going,” Buckley told AFP. “It will only be a few years from now that coal is contributing virtually nothing,” he added. Read more

[On MENAFN] In a historic development for Australia’s energy sector, coal-fired power generation fell to an unprecedented low during the last week of August. Tim Buckley, a climate finance expert, highlighted that while this record low is partly a result of temporary weather conditions, it also indicates a broader trend towards diminishing reliance on coal. Buckley predicts that it will only be a few years before coal’s contribution to the national energy market approaches zero. Read more

You don’t need to believe in anthropogenic climate change to understand that our major coal export customers – China, Japan, and Korea – are rapidly transitioning to renewable energy, because they’d rather produce cheap power in their backyards than buy it from us. I remember being in a room with Tim Buckley, from Climate Energy Finance, who was telling Hunter community members that in 2023 alone, China built six times as much in solar energy generation capacity than Australia has ever built in history – including coal, gas, hydro, solar, and wind. Read more

Distributed internationally via AFP – Australia remains one of the world’s leading exporters of coal and gas and has relied heavily on fossil fuels to keep the lights on. But climate finance expert Tim Buckley said August’s record figures were caused by wild weather and a warm start to the spring, which had reduced demand on the grid by up to 20 percent. “It’s a historically low coal share for Australia in the national energy market, but it’s also a sign of where we are going,” Buckley told AFP. “It will only be a few years from now that coal is contributing virtually nothing,” he added. Read more

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has released its latest Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO), painting an optimistic picture of Australia’s energy future. The report suggests that with continued investment in new renewable and storage projects, the nation can successfully transition beyond coal-fired power generation. Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance, highlighted that AEMO’s forecasts show power supply reliability can be maintained over most of the next 10 years, provided that established programs and initiatives are delivered on time. Read more