Media

Through initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China is strategically investing in renewable energy projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These partnerships include funding solar farms, wind power plants, and hydropower projects, enabling developing nations to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Tim Buckley, chief of Climate Energy Finance, highlights how China’s financial and technological contributions are crucial for advancing global decarbonization goals. Read more

Green energy success is helping Beijing push back against western political pressure. Xuyang Dong, a China energy policy analyst at Climate Energy Finance, an Australian think-tank, argues that China’s renewable electricity generation, backed by huge investment in the power grid and energy storage, means coal will increasingly only be used as an emergency back-up before, “inevitably”, being phased out. Read more

The election of Donald Trump – a felon and climate crisis denier – as president of the United States comes as a stroke of bitter irony after recent floods exacerbated by global warming smashed parts of the southeast US – Hurricane Milton alone is likely to cost up to US$50 billion – and given the escalating intensity of wildfires and other natural disasters taking a huge toll on America and other countries. Trump’s “drill baby, drill” energy policies are a disaster for the US, intergenerational equity and global efforts to mitigate the climate crisis. Read more

Tim Buckley speaks with Phillip Bateman on the sidelines of the IGGC annual conference Read more

The re-election of Donald Trump as US president – a charlatan, fool, felon and climate denier captured and paid for by the fossil fuel cartel – is a bitter irony after the devastating climate-change driven floods that smashed parts of the southeast US recently. Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ climate and energy ‘policies’ are a disaster for the nation, for intergenerational equity and equality, and will impact global efforts to mitigate climate change. Read more

Tim Buckley said: “There’s been such a dramatic rate of technological improvement with batteries, coupled with scaling up, that any advantage other technologies may have had, to meet the evening demand peak, from five to six years ago is gone,” he said. “Batteries will do a huge amount more heavy lifting than even thought a few years ago.” Read more

Tim Buckley comments that “although networks across the country are “antagonising” Australians by creating “sun taxes”, a fee to export rooftop solar power into the grid during peak periods, the cost is still immaterial compared to the savings people get from their rooftops. “That antagonism and mistrust and misinformation is an issue,” he says. “But the real one is when you put rooftop solar in, your electricity use goes down by 50 per cent, so how does the grid operator maintain their compensation? The answer is increasing their charges. If you put a battery in as well, your grid use goes down by 90 per cent, so your retailer’s and transmission operator’s revenue goes down by 90 per cent. “In one respect the electrification trend is a perfect counter to that [because AEMO forecasts electricity use will rise by 30 per cent in the coming decade].” Read more

CEF published a major report on the electrification and decarbonisation of the Pilbara in August 2024, that argued that AREH could be a key part of the solution. Tim Buckley and colleague CEF Net Zero Transformation Analyst Matt Pollard, believe that AREH has the potential to act as a model for the Pilbara in how private enterprise can effectively collaborate with state and federal governments to accelerate large-scale renewable energy projects. ‘Renewable energy hubs at the scale of AREH can provide significant cost advantages over distributed, smaller-scale renewable energy projects,’ they say. Read more

Responding to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook which tracks an ‘unprecedented growth in renewables’ and says fossil fuels will peak before 2030, Tim Buckley said: “The fossil fuel era is drawing to an inevitable close. Our future prosperity depends on hastening our energy transition and repositioning as a value-adding trade and investment leader.” “We should be deploying our solar and wind to process our energy transition materials like green iron and the critical minerals essential for cleantech onshore pre-export.” Read more

Tim Buckley, from Climate Energy Finance, says the IEA report is still likely to be underestimating the deployment of renewables. “Each year the IEA upgrades their renewable energy estimates, having underestimated the deflation of solar and BESS, and underestimating the technology improvements in cleantech as well – wind, solar, BESS and EVs,” Buckley says. “As such, the IEA’s expectation of peaks in all types of fossil fuel energy types is likely still too conservative. This is great news, as clearly global scientists have likewise underestimated the compounding impacts of climate change. “China clearly leads the world in both the manufacturing, domestic installation and export of all cleantech aspects. 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 talks to ABC Illawarra about the surge to 73.6% renewables in Australia’s grid in early October, and what we need to do to drive higher renewables penetration to permanently slash power bills Read more