Our work

Based on extensive modelling of China’s electricity market, CEF’S new report forecasts that thanks to China’s staggering surge in renewable energy generation, coal power generation will peak well before 2030, then plateau and decline. On the basis of China’s electricity decarbonisation progress to date, the report finds that it is entirely feasible for China to dramatically slow the rate of its new coal power plant buildout and cease the construction of new plants before 2030. This has profound significance for global decarbonisation. China is currently responsible for 96% of the world’s new coal power under construction. Read more

This week’s voting down of Woodside Energy’s misnamed Climate Transition Action Plan at the oil and gas giant’s 70th AGM is historic. It represents a milestone in shareholder activism – and a clarion call that the tide is turning on laggard fossil fuel majors that fail to responsibly and credibly address the greatest single risk they face: climate change. Read more

Tim Buckley presents at the CIF and is asked what he’d do if he woke up as the Prime Minister, the election was called early and he could make one change to the Australian Government Read more

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today announces the Future Made in Australia Act, designed to deliver a uniquely Australian Response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – which is turbocharging renewables, cleantech and reindustrialisation in the US as it drives massive private capital investment – and comparable initiatives across other major economies. The Act will bring together a co-ordinated and comprehensive package of new and existing decarbonisation initiatives to seize the opportunities of a future made in Australia. It promises massive new investment, regional employment and net export opportunities, leveraging and value-adding our world-leading natural resources, both renewables and mining, as well as our expertise, geographic position in Asia and financial strengths. Read more

CEF’s new report reveals taxpayers would be on the hook for $150m per year in subsidies to Origin Energy to keep ageing coal clunker Eraring operating beyond its planned closure date in August 2025, and confirms there is enough renewable capacity in the pipeline to offset the closure. Read more

On the 7th anniversary of the announcement of Snowy 2.0, Owen Evans chronicles an unmitigated energy infrastructure disaster – a case study in what not to do. Read more

Last week’s announcement by AusSuper, Australia’s biggest super fund with over $300bn in assets under management, that it will dramatically upscale its investments offshore, including A$15.5bn into large-scale, long-term energy transition opportunities in the UK, should be a wake-up call to Australian energy policymakers. Read more

As the LNP ramps up its campaign for nuclear energy in Australia, we write that the nuclear furphy deters renewable energy investor confidence & increases sovereign risk as it betrays the Australian people Read more

Here we go again – the latest salvo from the climate laggards of the National Party designed to disrupt and delay Australia’s accelerating clean energy revolution. This time, it is couched in the tactically crafty but deeply cynical and flawed view that distributed renewables – minus utility-scale – are the solution to electricity grid decarbonisation. Read more

An analysis of Queensland’s current energy grid and its transition from FY24 to FY36, modelling the impacts of large-scale and distributed energy generation and storage to meet Queensland’s renewable energy and emissions reduction targets. Read more

While national standards and guidance are typically designed to cover minimum requirements, internationally-accepted climate integrity principles are a much higher standard and should be the goal. Read more

Yesterday afternoon storms damaged power lines across Victoria taking all four generators at AGL’s massive end-of-life 2,210 megawatt (MW) coal-fired Loy Yang A power station offline as part of a cascading series of events, and with it 30% of the state’s power supply. This is a massive wake up call on the unreliability of ailing coal clunkers and the need to transition to firmed renewables. Read more