Media

In a speech to Queensland’s Media Club, Albanese laid out the foundations of federal Labor’s plan to use taxpayer-funded incentives to advance the manufacturing and clean energy industries, including hydrogen, green metals, solar power and emerging renewables. “Albanese’s speech announcing the Act is ambitious and visionary,” said Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance and a former MD of Citigroup. “It has the makings of the foundation for our future as a zero-emissions trade and investment leader and global clean energy superpower, as we inevitably pivot from our historic dependence on carbon exports. Buckley says Albanese’s vision is to build on Australia’s existing strengths – and critically, also look beyond them – a point many “old-school economists” have so far failed to grasp. “Relying on traditional competitive advantage logic misses that the transition to net zero is a $US4-6 trillion annual investment opportunity globally for the next couple of decades… and one in which every major economy has invested massive national interest public capital,” Buckley said on Thursday. Read more

Opinion piece from energy leader Danny Kennedy from New Energy Nexus on the opportunity for Australia for invest onshore in battery processing. “Time and again we are faced with this frustrating lack of both vision and understanding of the context, scale and urgency of the task before us. Australia produces over half of the world’s lithium yet retains less than 1% of the profit that lithium eventually delivers in final products of batteries and EVs. Why not invest in manufacturing batteries onshore? It’s a sector ripe for scaling, something we’re told time and again that we can’t do. Why?” Read more

A coalition of business, union, First Nations and community groups are calling for local content requirements to be built into tenders for the Capacity Investment Scheme. A measured, considered domestic content stipulation in CIS tenders will support domestic clean energy and technology supply chains to mature. It can be a valuable tool that underpins investor confidence both into and by Australian companies. Read more

A coalition including leading union, investor, energy, industry and First Nations peak groups today called on the federal government to embed requirements for locally produced and supplied components into all renewable energy supply chain manufacturing and development. A measured, considered local content requirement (LCR) in CIS tenders will support the domestic clean energy and technology supply chains to mature. Read more

On the Planet A podcast dive into the world of renewable energy and decarbonization with Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance – an engaging discussion on the future of energy, global energy markets, and how we are becoming a multi-polar world. Read more

Climate Capital Forum member Satya Tanner in Port Stephens News of the Area new site, on the importance of communities remaining engaged in consultation on offshore wind in Australia. Read more

The false dichotomy of distributed small-scale versus utility-scale renewables, coupled with the nuclear and CCS furphies, is the latest chapter in the Coalition’s efforts to stymie and repoliticise Australia’s energy transition. As Andrew Forrest succinctly put it at his National Press Club address this week: “If we swallow this new lie that we should stop the rollout of green energy and that nuclear energy will be our fairy godmother, we will be worse off again.” Read more

With Laura Tingle on ABC TV’s 7.30, Tim Buckley supports calls by Rod Sims and Ross Garnaut of The Superpower Institute for the federal government to leverage Australia’s generational opportunity be become a zero-emissions trade and investment leader – and for a Carbon Solutions Levy to invest in the clean energy transition. Read more

Tim Buckley, the director of Climate Energy Finance, however expressed his fear on LinkedIn that the Australian Government would hide behind the rhetoric that Australia can’t afford to think big, in terms of the scale of the need and the massive intergenerational opportunity. Buckley calls for public-private partnerships with world-leading financial majors within and outside of Australia and with global industry leaders, the country’s biggest customers, citing China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Japan’s Panasonic & Mitsui & Co., Ltd., and India’s Reliance Industries Limited as examples. Read more

The transition of Australia’s energy system will simply not happen without diversified supply: offshore wind projects are an important component now available for our future energy system. Climate Capital Forum member and experienced wind energy executive, Naomi Campbell, outlines the extensive feasibility process involved and the opportunity for community engagement. Read more

As Tim Buckley and Annemarie Jonson write, the Coalition’s Luddites are at it again, doing what they do best – wrecking the joint as they try to blow up the renewables transition. Meanwhile, investment in the clean energy that will solve the climate crisis and deliver permanent energy bill relief to consumers is skyrocketing Read more

Climate and energy experts criticised a $137 million federal grant to BlueScope Steel for a $1.15 billion upgrade of its Port Kembla blast furnace – extending coal-based steelmaking for two decades – as a missed chance to spur more ambitious carbon reductions. The Climate Capital Forum, which represents investors, decarbonisation firms and policy experts, said that “while Australia procrastinates, developed world leaders are pivoting”. Read more