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Republished from RENEW ECONOMY, 7 May 2025 Tim Buckley, from Climate Energy Finance, says that with Labor returned to government, it is time to “grasp this moment of policy certainty” and use it to build investor confidence, crowding-in domestic and foreign financial capital at scale to underpin our transition. Read more

“Without customers, suppliers and governments working together to a common time-frame, these projects aren’t going to get built, and that’s why we’ve seen so many announcements in the press of companies going bankrupt because they can’t do the capital raising anymore, or projects being slowed right down” Read more

China has emerged as the global leader in clean technology, making significant strides in renewable energy technology, manufacturing, domestic deployments […] Read more

Hoping to avoid 25% tariffs, Japanese and European officials have agreed to deals analysts are describing as financially questionable. Meanwhile, […] Read more

Under the plan, METI will evaluate submissions by automakers on their low-emission steel procurement and allocate subsidies based on the percentage of green steel being used, according to Matt Pollard, an analyst at clean energy consultancy Climate Energy Finance. “In the broader context, it is important for METI to publicly release the carbon accounting methodologies, green product definitions and emission thresholds it will use to determine products and producers that will benefit from the models approved under the new subsidy scheme,” Pollard said. Put simply, how all this works is likely to determine whether it is actually successful. 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

Some of the key highlights from this report are: Need for a clear embodied decarbonisation price signal in international trade, extending the EU ETS and CBAM with an Asian CBAM Iron ore and met coal exports from Australian mines in FY 2024 generated gross profit of A$120bn from the Asian Steel Sector, plus A$10 bn pa of royalties to each of WA and Queensland state governments. Read more

Despite being the hottest year on record, 2024 saw a cooling in attitudes towards climate action, with the realpolitik of corporate profits sidelining environmental, sustainability and governance concerns. For some companies, the reality of taking steps to achieve their green targets was shoved into the “too hard”, “too expensive”, or “just plain irrelevant” baskets. Read more

The suspension of the group came just days after its biggest member, BlackRock, said it would quit the organisation. In a letter to its clients, the New York-headquartered asset management giant said membership of the net zero initiative had “caused confusion regarding BlackRock’s practices and subjected us to legal inquiries from various public officials”. Read more

While Xi’s Communist Party won’t be rushed as it transitions China’s electricity network, it sees a huge opportunity in the global shift. “China wants to dominate the industries of the future,” says Tim Buckley, the Sydney-based head of Climate Energy Finance, a clean energy think tank. In sector after sector from wind farms to solar panels to battery storage to the rollout of new fourth-generation nuclear power technology, China now leads the world. “I have been watching China for 15 years and they’ve exceeded every expectation I had in terms of their investment and the longevity of their strategic thinking,” says Buckley, who used to be the head of research at Citigroup’s Australian hub. Read more

Tim Buckley, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, said Australia had clearly seen significant uncertainty in the development of offshore wind, where the Coalition’s overt opposition had undermined momentum. But he said the economics of offshore wind had also taken a hit in recent years, which had been a global trend. Buckley has not seen evidence that investors are pulling out of the development of onshore renewables and batteries as a result of the Coalition’s nuclear policy. A report released by his firm this week found that investment activity over the past six months put Australia on track to deliver on the Government’s 2030 target of 82% renewables share in the energy grid. Read more

The rise of solar in the subcontinent has been all about government subsidies and massive arrays out in the desert. “India sees the opportunity to build energy security, grid diversity and reduce their massive over-reliance on imported fossil fuels,” says Tim Buckley, the director of Climate Energy Finance. It’s a familiar dynamic: fossil fuels falling into structural decline as massive new solar farms come online. And while solar continues its march towards super-cheap, super-abundant energy generation during the day, it’s over to another technology to continue the clean-energy transition into the night. “Solar was the disruption of last decade,” says Tim Buckley. “Batteries will be the disruption of this coming decade.” Read more