Our work

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

The Federal Budget is a mixed bag for climate and energy with a serious case of underreach on fixing the failed PRRT gas tax, but some good policy and funding progress on a National Net Zero Authority, energy bill relief and home and business electrification, and measures to respond to the global race to renewables, such as $2bn for a green Hydrogen Headstart program – all in the context of a massive surprise $4.2bn surplus. However, we need to see more fiscal ambition to respond to game-changing international policy and funding reforms such as the US Inflation Reduction Act that are turbocharging global energy transition. Read more

Tim Buckley’s presentation to the Smart Energy Council conference looks at the massive global acceleration of decarbonisation, including via the funding and policy reforms of Biden’s IRA which has turbocharged the transition in the US. What are the implications for the imminent Federal Budget if Australia to position itself as a global leader in the new cleantech world economy? Read more

The foundational premise of CEF is that financial markets are phenomenally powerful, but they need an explicit, high, permanent price on carbon to drive the rapid decarbonisation pathway required to ensure alignment with 1.5°C, which was made politically toxic by the previous government. In our view, the SGM reforms by the Albanese government could be strengthened, but create a credible framework to re-establish a price on carbon emissions in Australia. Read more

Our wrap of the top ten energy events in 2022, including the end of federal climate and energy policy chaos under the LNP, and our wishlist for an even better 2023! Read more

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

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