Our work

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

A full overview of our work and impacts across our program areas for the 6 months July-Dec 2023 Read more

The world is in a technology, trade and finance race as the energy transition takes hold and we grapple with the growing impacts of climate change and climate risk. Australia has one of the biggest investment, employment, and net export opportunities this century, but only if we proactively build a strategic national response proportional to the investment opportunity. In our submission with Climate Capital Forum, we call for a major public policy shift, at scale, to set the right market signals and strategically leverage the national balance sheet, and selectively provide public budget support to unlock and crowd-in private capital. 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

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

With Sweden’s H2GS building the world’s first large-scale green steel plant and Europe’s first giga-scale electrolyser, we look at the massive opportunity for Australia – the world’s biggest producer of iron ore – to lead in the production of green iron, and the conditions that make this possible: substantial national interest public capital investment to trigger private investment at scale, and a massive decarbonisation of our grid to supply 100% green energy for processing. We must do more than dig and ship! Read more

Our new report argues Australia’s mining sector should become a global leader in electrification of mine equipment, developing onshore battery, recycling and EV manufacturing supply chains and embodying decarbonisation in our commodity exports as a key competitive advantage. We could do this by capping the diesel fuel rebate to $50m pa per firm, clawing back $14bn in tax revenue to 2030 and investing that money in kickstarting an electrified mining transport industry here Read more

CEF consulted with the NSW Treasury, the NSW Office of Energy and Climate Change and the Sustainable Finance Unit of the Commonwealth Treasury to provide input into their decision on whether a nationally consistent approach to transition planning is needed, what guidance would assist businesses and how efforts can best be coordinated. Read more

In this new position paper, Janaline Oh, executive director of Diplomats for Climate Action, and CEF director Tim Buckley identify 5 urgent finance reforms the federal government should put in place so as to mobilise capital at the scale and speed needed to secure Australia’s opportunity to position itself as a critical minerals and energy transition leader in a rapidly decarbonising world – including leveraging our world leading super capital pool and our nation-building, infrastructure and energy transition funding authorities such as the Future Fund and Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility. Read more

As AER flags significant electricity price hikes from July 1, we note that these increases are half what they would have been without the federal government intervention to cap wholesale coal and gas prices in December 2022, as AER acknowledged. Our expectation is that retail prices may have peaked, and we look at the prospects for power prices against the backdrop of the rise of deflationary renewables and global race to decarbonisation. Read more

Overnight, US President Biden and Australian PM Albanese announced a groundbreaking bilateral agreement which will increase cooperation between the two countries on energy transition, with a focus on critical minerals and cleantech supply chain. Read our initial analysis of what this means for Australia, especially in the context of the massive $800bn US inflation Reduction Act turbocharging energy transition there. Read more

As APPEA members and lobbyists gather for the annual gas shills’ jamboree and talkfest, we take a forensic look at Resources Minister Madeleine King’s keynote address, and deconstruct the baseless claim that we need more gas – when what we need is a fast, dramatic and wholesale pivot to value-adding critical minerals and energy transition materials onshore, backed by a landmark injection of public investment. With the world responding to the game-changing $1tn US Inflation Reduction Act, we delay, we lose. And the train is leaving the station. Read more