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Tim Buckley sees Sun Cable’s pivot from a 4,200km subsea electricity cable to solar-powered data centres as a pragmatic shift […] Read more

It is incredibly disappointing that Australia’s largest company refuses to act in line with climate science. Tim Buckley, director of the think tank Climate Energy Finance, notes that the cancellation of the project comes as the company appears to be winding back its broader decarbonisation ambitions. Last month, BHP revealed it had deferred until the next decade a decision on when or indeed whether it will electrify its vast fleet of trucks and trains. Read more

“It is incredibly disappointing that Australia’s biggest company refuses to act in alignment with the climate science. “And it makes the government’s emissions reduction trajectory extremely difficult to deliver on.” The cancellation of the so-called ‘Inland Solar PV’ project comes amid what one analyst described as a “cooling” by BHP on broader decarbonisation efforts. Read more

The exposé accuses Climate Energy Finance of proposing something truly radical – capping mining fuel tax breaks and redirecting the savings to renewable energy. The evidence of foreign manipulation? A decade-old university donation, a couple of routine business partnerships and the apparently treasonous act of acknowledging that China manufactures solar panels. Welcome to McCarthyism for the climate age, where any policy that trims fossil profits gets recast as Beijing’s master plan. The guilt-by-association game begins with CEF’s supposed “partners linked to the Chinese Government”. Read more

China is home to half of the world’s solar, half of the world’s wind power and half of the world’s electric cars. “In the month of April alone, 45.2GW of solar was added, more than Australia’s total cumulative solar power capacity,” Caroline Wang said. “China’s renewable capacity has exponentially increased and that has also contributed to the drop in coal, in coal use and emissions. There is now a structural kind of decline of coal.” That’s already having an impact on emissions. Read more

“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, founder and director of Climate Energy Finance, says progressive cuts to feed-in-tariffs are “the logical end-point” for Australia’s rooftop solar success story. “Expecting to be paid for electricity exports when they are worse [than] worthless is ill-informed. Why should a renter or apartment dweller subsidised the richer home owners?” he writes in a LinkedIn post on the subject this week. But Buckley says moving to a “Sun Tax” is exactly that – “demanding the poor subsidise the better off.” There are better ways to ensure the grid is not flooded with excess solar during the middle of the day. 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

At the public meeting organised by SPA on 26 April, Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance (CEF), made the following points: – CEF acts on the basis of climate science, and the last 11 years were the warmest on record – The world invested US$2.1 trillion in cleantech in 2024, over 11% year on year – The boom in solar and wind pushed the world past 40% clean electricity in 2024 Read more

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

The benefits of the new battery program extend beyond those with existing solar. Reducing energy demand in the peak evening period brings down wholesale electricity prices and network costs, meaning reduced power prices for all. Read more

The rebate would only apply to people with rooftop solar, meaning people living in an apartment and renters could miss out. Buckley said he would like to see this revised and caveats put in place for apartment blocks, so that those households aren’t left behind. “I would hope this is just the next iteration of a number of policies to make sure we deal with apartment dwellers,” he said. “There could be split incentives for renters and landlords, and policies to deal with council regulations and strata titles.” Read more