Reports and Analysis
GUEST CONTRIBUTION | Decarbonising finance: lessons from world economies as India’s central bank addresses climate risk
Financial governance and risk expert Praveen Gupta looks at global moves to decarbonise finance, as the RBI consults on climate change with more than $84bn of debt at India’s leading financial institutions at risk from extreme weather events. (A version was first published in Illuminem.) Read more
CEF NEWS UPDATE | Are banks walking the climate talk? | + social mandate grows for windfall tax
We launch a new series analysing the big 5 banks’ climate finance and decarbonisation progress, plus, the latest in our series on critical minerals value-adding opportunities in Australia, and calls for a windfall tax on war profiteering fossil fuel multinationals grow. Read more
COMMENT | Federal assessment of major coal and gas projects’ climate harms a step toward a prosperous, clean energy future
Tim Buckley comments on the implications of the landmark news today that the federal environment minister will reassess 18 coal and gas projects on the basis of climate impacts – a first. Read more
ANZ FY22 Full Year Results | Climate Finance Assessment
In this first in CEF’s series of climate finance analyses of Australia’s Big 5 banks – ANZ, CBA, Westpac, NAB and Macquarie Bank – energy finance analyst Nishtha Aggarwal takes a deep dive into ANZ’s efforts against four criteria that are key to assessing progress on decarbonisation in line with science-based targets: ANZ’s climate financing pledge, customer engagement, emissions intensity by sector, and its energy loan book. Read more
ANALYSIS | State and federal support key to Australia becoming a critical minerals super power
In #6 in CEF’s series on critical minerals, Matt Pollard and Tim Buckley review key Australian public financial capital initiatives and their role in accelerating Australia’s critical mineral supply chain value-adding projects, with a focus on key examples. Read more
COMMENT | International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2022
The IEA released its flagship annual World Energy Outlook this afternoon AEDT against the backdrop of intersecting energy and climate crises. The WEO provides critical analysis and insights on trends in energy demand and supply. Here are CEF’s key takeouts. Read more
ANALYSIS | Federal budget: Substantial progress on energy transition, but fossil fuel tax reform a serious omission
The budget is pragmatic and aligned with the government’s positive energy transition commitments. However, the absence of any meaningful fossil fuel tax reform is a major omission. Read more
ANALYSIS | Australia’s mammoth renewable minerals opportunity – and how to harness it
As Tim Buckley and Matt Pollard discuss below in paper #5 in CEF’s series on critical minerals, Australia’s allies have demonstrated the growing use of federal support in accelerating private capital inflows to scale and diversify their supply chains around critical minerals, as Australia steps up to the opportunity via its new National Critical Minerals Strategy. Read more
ANALYSIS | Green hydrogen momentum is building, but is a decade from commercialisation
As Tim Buckley writes, hydrogen has great potential in our decarbonisation pathway, but absent massive subsidies, commercial viability is a decade away, and we need to beware the hype. Read more
CEF NEWS UPDATE | A transformative week in Australia’s energy transition
IN this update, we track a transformative period in Australian energy policy with the federal government announcing the first tranche of its $20bn Rewiring the Nation plan and major advances in Victoria and QLD Read more
ANALYSIS | When critical minerals and decarbonisation collide: eight newer value-add refining proposals in Australia & NZ
In this note, paper #4 in our series on critical minerals posted here, CEF’s Tim Buckley and Matthew Pollard review eight newer value-add refining proposals across Australia and NZ to illustrate that capital flows to green energy are accelerating: rare earths, hydrogen electrolysers and green ammonia, vanadium, lithium hydroxide, nickel and cobalt, and value-added downstream battery developments. Read more
ANALYSIS | India’s Electricity Sector Transformation Continues to Gather Pace
Newly released figures from India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) demonstrate the shift towards zero emissions generation, with 100% of net new capacity adds in the first half of FY2022/23 being variable renewable energy (VRE) at 98% and hydro-electricity at 2%. Read more