Our work

National cabinet agreed on welcome measures today to curb the fossil fuel bill shock impacting Australians, including coal and gas wholesale price caps, $1.5bn in energy rebates and an energy security plan comprising the newly agreed capacity investment mechanism and the $20bn Rewiring the Nation strategy. Still to do: tax the fossil multinationals making obscene war profits from Australia’s sovereign public assets as they laugh all way to the bank. Read more

We wrap the news of the week including the energy price relief plan, the energy ministers’s agreement on a capacity investment mechanism that will trigger investment into firmed renewables, and we take a look at the tsunami of green capital inflow to the US off the back of its Inflation Reduction Act (aka Climate Bill). Read more

The new federal government has achieved something the LNP failed to deliver over a lost decade of energy policy chaos – a cooperative agreement with the state energy ministers on a capacity mechanism that will turbocharge firmed renewables and accelerate an orderly energy transition. Read more

We have done the math: multinational fossil fuel corporations will book a collective $120-140 billion gross profit in calendar year 2022. These war profiteers are inflicting untold pain on Australian households and business as energy bill shock exacerbates inflationary pressures. It’s past time for governments to step in on behalf of taxpayers and say “show me the money”. Read more

As the government considers solutions to the fossil fuel price crisis, Tim Buckley notes that no other industry has caused such significant economic hardship for 21 million Australians, all the while banking unprecedented profits. The free ride has to stop, and the interests of Australians must come first. As Rod Sims, former chair of the ACCC has said, the government must now show the gas industry its baseball bat. Read more

We track the energy news of the week – including the announcement of two of the world’s biggest windfarms in Victoria and QLD – as capital inflows to clean tech accelerate, driven by Australia’s increasingly ambitious climate, critical minerals and energy policies. Read more

A special update of CEF’s November 3 ANZ Climate Finance Assessment. In the same week that the CSIRO announced Australia has reached 1.47°C warming – 0.03 degrees shy of the Paris threshold – we were pleased to see ANZ renew its climate change commitment, boasting a massive uplift in decarbonisation finance with a $100bn pledge over 8 years, from FY2023 to FY2030. We track this positive move, and areas where there is still an urgent need for further ambition. Read more

The currently largely ineffectual federal Safeguard Mechanism, intended to drive down emissions by Australia’s largest emitters (currently > 100,000t CO2 pa) is under review. The SGM is a crucial tool for emissions reduction and the reform in train is a a test of the new government’s bona fides on decarbonisation. In this 2 page briefing, Tim Buckley notes that legislation – not regulation – is required, and if the SGM is to have the desired effect, the government must mandate an Avoid>Minimise>Mitigate>Offset hierarchy. Read more

Our latest update including the historic victory for decarbonisation at the AGL AGM, our deep dive into BlueScope’s plan to sink $1bn into carbon intensive blast furnace tech, and our most recent analyses of big banks’ climate efforts – this time focussing on NAB – and of the critical minerals industry, looking at Australian companies expanding offshore. Read more

A victory for impact investing this week after sweeping reforms at carbon dinosaur AGL’s AGM. We track the striking similarities between Sentient Impact Group / Climate Energy Finance’s report “One AGL: from laggard to leader” and AGL’s newly mandated transition plan, which sees it exit coal early and invest ~$20bn in renewables. Read more

With the major steelmaker’s AGM on Tuesday 22 November, Tim Buckley examines why BlueScope is planning to sink $1bn into outdated blast furnace tech at Port Kembla that would entrench huge carbon emissions at the heart of Australian steelmaking for decades to come, just as BlueScope US makes strides in decarbonisation. Read more

In this second in CEF’s series of climate finance analyses of Australia’s big banks, CEF’s Nishtha Aggarwal scrutinises NAB’s efforts against four criteria key to assessing decarbonisation progress: its climate financing pledge, customer engagement, emissions intensity by sector, and its energy loan book. The news is mixed, with some progress, coupled with a need for a dramatic increase in ambition, as the analysis shows. Read more