Media

“We have been a dig and ship country for 50 years,” says Tim Buckley. “Fifty per cent of the entire world’s lithium supply came from Australia last year. We have the opportunity to play at world scale, as we do in iron ore, as we do in gold, and as we do in thermal coal” but we must do more to value-add by processing onshore. Read more

“America has announced 40 gigawatts of new solar module manufacturing capacity in the last six months, on the back of the Inflation Reduction Act – a six-fold expansion [in] American solar module manufacturing capacity. China has announced 294 gigawatts of new solar module manufacturing capacity in just the last three months, all of which will be commissioned within the next two years, if not sooner,” says Buckley. “The IEA says China accounted for 65 per cent of global clean tech manufacturing factory expansions in the first three months of this year.” Read more

Tim Buckley described the US-Australia Climate and Energy Compact announced this week as a critically-important development in the context of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is turbocharging the energy transformation in the US with upwards of $800 billion of federal investment in clean energy initiatives and attracting a massive influx of global capital to the US, opening up huge investment opportunities for Australian companies. Read more

Tim Buckley shares his insights on the new US-Australia Climate Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact. He views this as a geopolitical statement of global significance for Australia, demonstrating strategic intent to collaborate on critical minerals, climate, and clean energy., also emphasising the importance of Congress ratifying President Biden’s commitment for the agreement to be realised. Read more

Tim Buckley says the new US-Australia Climate, Critical Minerals and Clean Energy Transformation Compact agreed by US President Biden and PM Albanese provides a landmark policy statement of strategic intent, formalising collaboration and coordination of policies and investments to expand and diversify the clean energy and critical minerals supply chains that underpin global decarbonisation. Read more

This last weekend, US President Biden and PM Albanese agreed a landmark compact for bilateral cooperation on climate and energy, which will massively boost inbound investment and elevate Australia’s potential to lead the world in production of value-added critical minerals, green hydrogen and materials key to the energy transition, as Tim Buckley explains. Read more

“We’ve now got this massive policy and fiscal stimulus on anything to do with decarbonisation. In some respects, it’s a response to the geopolitics of China American trade relations,” Tim Buckley says. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, estimates Woodside and its Scarborough and Browse LNG project partners face a safeguard mechanism carbon bill of $63 billion out to 2050 if they go ahead. Australian gas producers face the tightening of the safeguard mechanism to make it work as it was designed – as an effective cap-and-trade carbon pricing scheme. Read more

As CEF”s Matt Pollard writes, EV sales accounted for 15% of the global passenger vehicle market in 2022, up from just 5% in 2020. In February, EV sales in China hit a record 32% market share of passenger auto-sales, with fossil fuel-based vehicles falling 20% in absolute terms from February 2022. Capital deployment into clean energy technologies and supply chain diversification has turbo-charged EV sales, galvanised by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). We look at the trends and implications for Australia. Read more

Tim Buckley comments on the new CEIG report which says private capital investment of over $420bn is needed to decarbonise the NEM in line with 1.5 degrees. The scenario is ambitious but credible, said Tim Buckley”, “the global landscape has changed so fundamentally in the last 9 months, the Australian landscape has changed with new government, such that we now have state and federal alignment but also at the global level, and the US Inflation Reduction Act is a global gamechanger.” Read more

Our op ed on the new report released today by CEIG and IGCC on what investors need to accelerate the energy transition – collaboration from government with policy and investment to derisk decarbonisation of the electricity sector and attract private capital. Read more

Australia stands to be a massive beneficiary of the global decarbonisation race – if it gets the policy and investments right, says Tim Buckley. The good news, says Buckley, is that alongside domestic government policy, global investment giants like Brookfield are increasingly crowding in. Read more