Our work

In September 2020, President Xi Jinping announced China’s national climate target to peak CO2-e emissions before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Despite coal-fired generation capacity expanding in China into 2023, deployment of zero emission generation has significantly outpaced fossil fuels. We examine the aggressive scope 1-3 decarbonisation plans of four Chinese world leaders: CATL, LONGi, JinKO Solar and Trina Solar, far ahead of Australian corporate ‘leaders’ like BHP, Wesfarmers and BlueScope Steel. Read more

Leading clean energy and investor groups today applauded Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s expansion of the Capacity Investment Scheme to 32GW, a huge stepchange in ambition that will accelerate Australia’s clean energy transition and ensure energy affordability and reliability. See the joint statement CEF released with the Clean Energy Investor Group, representing renewable energy investors with ~11GW of installed capacity across ~70 power stations and a portfolio value of ~$24bn; the Smart Energy Council, the independent body for the Australian smart energy industry with more than 950 members, Nexa Advisory and Solar Citizens. Read more

NAB’s exposure to renewables is higher than its on-book fossil fuel financing for the first time but the full scope of its fossil value chain exposures and facilitative financing is not disclosed. This is inconsistent with NAB’s green financing disclosure and we call on NAB for greater transparency in fossil fuel financing. NAB supported the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative (ETI) which models a 36% reduction in Australian LNG exports to 2030 and 75% reduction to 2040 against a 2020 baseline guided by the IEA NZE scenario. However, NAB’s oil and gas (O&G) financing policy does not stack up to this ambition, with major gaps in corporate finance, bonds, and facilitative finance. Read more

What kind of game is AustralianSuper, the country’s biggest super fund, playing with Origin Energy? The pension behemoth, with $300bn in assets under management and over 3.26 million members, is shaping up to scuttle a bid by Canadian fund manager Brookfield, plus Singapore’s Temasek and GIC, to acquire Australia’s largest power company, gentailer Origin Energy, owner of near-death coal clunker Eraring, Australia’s biggest coal-power station slated for mothballing in 2025. Is it in the public interest for the acquisition to be blocked when doing so cruels the $20-30bn investment in 14GW of accelerated firmed renewable energy to which Brookfield has committed? Read more

Founder of the Climate Capital Forum and one of The Australian’s Top 100 Green Energy Players Blair Palese says we need a new playbook for the decarbonising ballgame. A massive national strategic capital public investment program that establishes Australia as a zero-emissions trade and investment leader is required. Read more

Tim Buckley’s presentation to the ANU’s Rare Earth Conference Read more

Treasury has opened its consultation on a sustainable finance strategy that promises to strengthen the ability for Australia’s financial markets to allocate capital to decarbonising Australia’s economy. One of its priorities is a sustainable finance ‘taxonomy’ that will establish what economic activities warrant the special consideration by green and transition-labelled finance pools focused on mitigating the effects of climate change. The potential leverage includes Australia’s $3.5tn superfund pool, the banking sector’s collective $400bn in sustainable finance targets, and the Government’s proposed Green Bond program. However, this mobilisation of capital for decarbonisation will only succeed if the taxonomy is credible and achieves widespread market adoption. Read more

We welcome and applaud the Treasurer’s focus today on 4 key industry and economic opportunities, which reflect the key priorities CEF and its partners have identified: refining and processing critical minerals; supporting manufacturing of generation and storage technologies, including batteries; producing renewable hydrogen and its derivatives like ammonia; and forging green metals including green iron. We need to see further details, but the Treasurer’s assertion that $225bn capital investment is needed by 2050 is too low by orders of magnitude, this timeframe is too late, and it reveals a too-cautious federal policy mindset that risks forgoing Australia’s opportunity to position itself as a leader in global cleantech supply chains as the world moves at breakneck speed to decarbonise. Read more

Modernising the nation’s $10tn housing stock promises to ease cost of living pressures, improve the health and comfort of homes, whilst helping to solve climate change. Australian banks are the main entry point to financing home energy performance upgrades. With a combined 46% mortgage market share, CBA and Westpac have powerful levers to help transform and decarbonise the sector. Read more

The $2bn top up for the federal Critical Minerals Facility pledged by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his state visit to the US this week is an entirely insufficient response to the US$1 trillion industrial and energy stimulus of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA is the biggest commitment of public funding in US history – and the single biggest opportunity for Australia this generation. Here’s why. Read more

Tim Buckley’s presentation for the Investment Innovation Institute on the global energy transition: how China leads the world in the global technology and investment race, how the US IRA changes everything; Australia’s Critical Minerals Strategy and how we can embody decarbonisation in our exports; and stockmarket examples of energy transition. Read more

CEF partially supports the proposed Climate Bill, but recommend it be strengthened to better align with the climate science, the clear and growing cost of inadequate action and the once-in-a-century opportunities of rapid decarbonisation for investment, jobs and cost of living. The absence of an strong interim emissions reduction target in 2035 is a particular concern, given deep cuts must be front loaded in the next decade if we are to have hope of preventing catastrophic climate change. Read more