Media

In a joint statement federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, Future Made in Australia Minister Tim Ayres and Resources Minister Madeleine King said benefits would flow to local workers, industries and communities, creating “well-paid local jobs” while also “strengthening economic resilience” and decarbonising industries. Read more

For Beijing, there is a persistent worry that Chinese companies could find themselves shut out of the Australian market as business and economic matters increasingly become entangled with security issues. And those concerns intensified on Tuesday, after Albanese and Trump spoke about the possibility of the US granting Australia an exemption to its newly announced 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. Read more

Industry figures fear wariness at the Foreign Investment Review Board about Chinese-linked investment is hindering the flow of capital needed to advance Australia’s energy transition, slowing progress on new wind and solar farms and stalling acquisitions. A $813m deal by a unit of energy major BP to sell five solar farms to Beijing Energy International Holding is close to collapse as the buyer seeks to secure foreign investment approval. Read more

The Climate Capital Forum, a network of investors, industry, climate finance experts and philanthropists, are calling on the federal government to immediately pass the Production Tax Credit Legislation (PTC) during this sitting week. PTC incentives form the financial backbone of the Future Made in Australia package, with a pay on delivery model that ensures funding only goes out to industry once the product is successfully produced. 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

Energy analyst Tim Buckley is director of think tank Climate Energy Finance and said the battle for Korea Zinc, the world’s largest zinc refiner, was globally significant. “To me it looks like two Korean families who have cooperated together for a long time and now there is a divergence of views and one of the Korean families has brought in one of the most successful Korean private equity firms, MBK, to come in and buy control,” he said. But Mr Buckley said it was simply too soon to predict ramifications on the move towards “green” zinc in Australia and Ark Energy’s renewable energy projects. “There is a fear that the company could go through a major strategic pivot, but to some degree we’re incidental to the central game plan in Korea,” he said. Read more

Think-tank Climate Energy Finance issued the predictions in its Green Capital Tsunami report released on Wednesday, which found Chinese investment in Australia had fallen to a decades-long low despite its record spending. The warnings come months after Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced an overhaul of foreign investment rules to take a “risk-based” approach to the sector, and more closely scrutinise investments in areas such as critical minerals. Read more

“Australia is never going to be able to compete on our own against the Chinese, the robotics, the artificial intelligence, the scale of their manufacturing, their phenomenal investments in research and development, all of that says we’ll never catch them,” says Tim Buckley. “But we don’t have to catch them; we can partner with them”. Read more

Tim Buckley details CEF”s new report, ‘Green capital tsunami: China’s >$100 billion outbound cleantech investment since 2023 turbocharges global energy transition’. He notes if Australia is to enjoy the benefits of the billions China’s cleantech leaders are investing into solar, wind, batteries, EVs etc across the globe, speeding global decarbonisation, it must embrace and welcome partnership and maintain positive bilateral relations. Read more

Australia China Business Council chair David Olsson reflects on CEF’s new Green Capital Tsunami report, which tracks $100bn since 2023 in foreign investment by Chinese firms in sun, wind, EVs, batteries and other cleantech around the world, noting that Australia has untold potential to partner with China and attract investment from the world’s cleantech superpower – if we get the foreign investment rules right. Read more

The director of Climate Energy Finance, Tim Buckley, said while Australia was right to court capital from the UAE for the green energy transition, it was also important to keep expectations in check. “I welcome collaboration with UAE, but we have to be realistic about how much money they might pour into Australia,” he said. “Particularly as the UAE is already emerging as a competitor for Australia in clean energy, because it has a big pool of capital for projects and an abundance of wind and solar, like us.” Mr Buckley said the truly “massive” commercial opportunities for Australia still lay in collaborating with major economies in the region like China and Japan to assist their decarbonisation progress. Read more

Elaine Johnson and Tim Buckley argue community concerns and environmental impacts mean that some mining projects, such as the Regis gold mine is NSW should have never got the go ahead. Read more