27 May 2022
CLIMATE POLITICS
Albanese commits Australia to stronger 2030 target, starts climate reset (Renew Economy): Prime minister Anthony Albanese has commenced a reset of Australia’s international climate action commitments, formalising its commitment to a stronger 2030 reduction target in his first address to a major international forum. Just a day after being sworn in, Albanese is in Tokyo for the ‘Quad’ meeting with the leaders of Japan, India and the United States to discuss collaboration between the four regional powers and how they can rebuild relationships across the Pacific region. Albanese used his opening address to formally commit Australia to the stronger 2030 emissions reduction target that Labor had taken to the election, saying that delivering climate action was a key diplomatic challenge in the Indo-Pacific region.
‘Greensland’ gains creates mandate for end of fossil fuels: Bandt (Sydney Morning Herald): Australia has granted the Greens a mandate to push the new Labor government to greater climate action and a phase-out of fossil fuels, Adam Bandt says, with the minor party on track to gain enough seats in the Senate to hold the balance of power in its own right. While the Greens appear to have affected a relatively modest 1.6 per cent swing of votes to them across the country, the “Greensland” voting plunge is expected to add up to three seats in Brisbane to the party’s lone Melbourne seat, which is held by Bandt, the party leader. He said the gains were the result of a three-year strategy to target Brisbane electorates.
Climate voters herald an irrevocable change to politics (Australian Financial Review): Anthony Albanese’s feat in becoming just the fourth Labor leader to take the party to victory from opposition since World War II is remarkable in itself. However, the circumstances in which it was achieved are so utterly unorthodox that Albanese’s victory is but part of a bigger story – one which has perhaps ushered in an irrevocable change to the political landscape.
Labor’s climate ‘super majority’ targets miners, emitters, drivers (Australian Financial Review): Miners and farmers face a wave of tough new environmental enforcement rules after Labor announced a last-minute plan in the dying hours of the election campaign to establish an independent conservation watchdog. The move adds to what are likely to be a range of post-election changes for how companies manage habitat protections, and come on top of a more aggressive push to accelerate Australia’s decarbonisation under a Labor government.
Chaney’s change: Curtin expected to fall after independent challenge (WA Today): Independent candidate Kate Chaney made a low-key entrance to her federal election party on Saturday night into the Centenary Pavilion at the Claremont Showgrounds in Perth. Voting in Western Australia had closed but safe Liberal seats had already started to tumble to similar challengers to herself calling for more government transparency and climate action.
CARBON MARKETS
Australian carbon prices surge on Labor win, as Bowen holds back ‘greenslide’ (Renew Economy): The price of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU) has surged on the first day of trading after the federal election, buoyed by expectations that the new Labor government will drive increased demand for emissions reductions. ACCU prices jumped almost 20 per cent higher on Monday, pushing above $35 per tonne, the highest level since a surprise market intervention in March by the former Morrison government saw the price of carbon offsets plummet overnight. Reacting to Labor’s success, offset traders moved quickly to snap up available ACCUs in anticipation that a strengthened Safeguard Mechanism would substantially boost demand for the offsets.
Australia’s first carbon credits ETF set to hit ASX (Australian Financial Review): Van Eck Australia will list a fund tracking the price of carbon across four global emission trading schemes on the local sharemarket as the investment manager moves to meet surging demand for green portfolio exposures it said was reinforced by the federal election results. The local arm of the $US85.5 billion ($120.1 billion) Wall Street investment firm on Monday lodged an application with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to launch the VanEck Global Carbon Credits ETF (Synthetic) on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Carbon markets are going global (The Economist): Carbon markets, for years short of puff, have at last become one of the most widespread tools in the fight against climate change. By the end of 2021 more than 21% of the world’s emissions were covered by some form of carbon pricing, up from 15% in 2020. Ever more businesses have to pay regulators for the right to release a tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Investors are getting interested too: trading on these markets grew by 164% last year, to €760bn ($897bn). That is undoubtedly great news. Carbon prices ensure companies that burn more fossil fuels are at a competitive disadvantage while green innovation is rewarded. The revenue from the sale of carbon permits, meanwhile, can be reinvested in renewable energy or other virtuous ventures as governments see fit.
Carbon storage: climate cure or palliative care for fossil fuels? (WA Today): In a world struggling to wean itself off fossil fuels the idea of capturing emissions and burying them is attractive: an add-on to existing technology that avoids a complete transformation of global energy and heavy industry sectors. Australia’s powerful oil and gas sector is a big fan, as was the Morrison government.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
WA industries are big polluters, and Labor's 2030 emissions target could hit them hard (ABC News): Western Australia is known as the engine room of the national economy, but with the change of government it will have to do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to the so-called green transformation. While protests about climate change have been getting louder, emissions from this growing group, which includes oil and gas producers, alumina refineries and iron ore mines, have been quietly going up, not down.
ExxonMobil investors back push for fossil fuel transition audit (Australian Financial Review): ExxonMobil shareholders on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) backed a measure calling on the oil company to spell out how a rapid global shift away from fossil fuels would affect its finances. The vote, which was backed by 52 per cent of shareholders, marks another victory for climate campaigners against America’s most valuable oil company, a year after an activist hedge fund won three seats on its board.
Climate credentials essential as Westpac eyes green lending boom (WA Today): In five years’ time, big corporations will be unable to secure a loan from a bank unless they can provide a credible plan to cut their carbon emissions. That’s the view of Westpac’s institutional boss Anthony Miller, a former investment banker who is eyeing off a boom in green-tinged lending as he tries to turn around his division’s performance. “Any form of debt or equity financing will not be available unless you’re meeting certain standards, and meeting certain targets in terms of reducing emissions over time. I think that’s something that’s likely within five years,” Miller says in an interview.
AGL split ‘not going to fly’ after Labor win: Cannon-Brookes (Australian Financial Review): Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes says AGL Energy’s demerger plan is “not going to fly” after Labor’s win in the federal election because it is not aligned with Paris climate goals, a declaration that brought a swift rebuttal from AGL chief executive Graeme Hunt. The AGL board “should pay attention to its shareholders and the mood of the country,” the Atlassian co-founder warned, using the win by Labor – with its more ambitious targets for emissions reduction – to ramp up his campaign against the split of AGL, which goes before a shareholder vote on June 15.
Cannon-Brookes boost as super fund HESTA to vote against AGL coal split (Sydney Morning Herald): The $68 billion superannuation giant HESTA has confirmed it will reject AGL’s controversial demerger at a vote next month, saying it believes the board’s proposal to spin off its coal-fired power stations into a standalone company will hamper Australia’s transition to a low-carbon future. With just four weeks to go until shareholders vote on AGL’s plan to break up its retail division and carbon-heavy power stations, Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has been ramping up efforts to convince the company’s shareholders to block the demerger. AGL’s board has called on investors to support the split.
Climate group sues Dutch airline KLM over ‘greenwashing’ adverts (The Guardian): Environmental campaigners are suing the Dutch airline KLM over “greenwashing” adverts they say misleadingly promote the sustainability of flying. Lawyers from ClientEarth are supporting Fossielvrij NL, a Netherlands-based campaign group, to bring a claim that KLM’s ad campaigns give a false impression of the sustainability of its flights and its plans to address its impact on the climate. “KLM’s marketing misleads consumers into believing that its flights won’t worsen the climate emergency. But this is a myth,” said Hiske Arts, a campaigner at Fossielvrij NL.
GREEN PROJECTS AND INITIATIVES
Labor opens up ‘stunning’ green investment opportunity (Australian Financial Review): Labor’s election win sets the scene for a massive flow of institutional capital into Australia’s power and industrial sector to achieve decarbonisation goals, as long as rules are put in place to provide the certainty needed for long-term investments, says the head of a major infrastructure investor in Britain and the US. “This is now a very significant market opportunity by global standards, and what’s attractive about it is the sheer scale of it and the timeframe over which it has to be achieved,” said David Scaysbrook, co-founder and managing partner of Australia-based Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.
Work begins on big battery adjoining Australia’s biggest solar project (Renew Economy): Work has begun on what is proposed to become a 400MWh big battery energy storage system that is being built alongside what will be – for a time at least – the biggest solar PV project in Australia, the 720MW New England solar farm in Uralla. Project developer ACEN Australia said in a press release published on the Philippine Stock Exchange this week that ground has been broken on the first-stage 50MW, one-hour battery in the NSW Northern Tablelands. Construction on the massive New England solar farm, originally developed by UPC\AC Renewables, is also underway across two fields east of Uralla, a town in the New England electorate of former deputy prime minister and Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce.
WA chases mega factory for hydrogen tech (WA Today): The West Australian government wants to lure makers of electrolysers – essential equipment for producing green hydrogen – so the state offers more than sun, wind and land to proposed multi-billon dollar projects to produce the clean fuel. Hydrogen Industry Minister Alannah MacTiernan said the government would help electrolyser manufacturers pay for studies into setting up a highly automated so-called gigafactory in WA.
“Liars:” Forrest and Turnbull take aim at fossil fuel hydrogen, set new green hydrogen target (Renew Economy): Iron ore billionaire and green hydrogen investor Andrew Forrest and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull have once again slammed the promoters of fossil fuel hydrogen projects, including describing them as “liars.” The accusations came at the Green Hydrogen Global Assembly in Barcelona last week, at which Forrest’s Fortescue Future Industries reportedly sent a team of more than 50, including Forrest – who led many sessions and hosted a reception – and Turnbull, an advisor to FFI. Forrest has set an extraordinarily ambitious target of producing 15 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year.
Alice Springs tests potential for remote control of home solar and batteries (Renew Economy): A renewable energy microgrid set up at the Northern Territory’s Charles Darwin University will test the ability of home solar and battery inverters to provide “essential support services” to the Alice Springs grid as it shifts to 50 per cent renewables by 2030. The testing at CDU’s Renewable Energy Microgrid Hub for Applied Research and Training (REMHART) in Darwin is being conducted in partnership with the Alice Springs Future Grid, a collaborative effort to identify and overcome barriers to high renewables grids. CDU says the primary technology being tested is three residential inverters – increasingly “intelligent” and programmable devices that convert energy generated from solar panels and batteries into electricity suitable for use in the grid.
OTHER MATTERS OF INTEREST
‘Highly implausible’ that new Galilee Basin coalmines would be profitable, study finds (The Guardian): Any new coalmines in Australia’s Galilee Basin, including Adani’s Carmichael mine, will not be economically viable in the long run under even the most generous assumptions about the future of the fossil fuel, according to an analysis by German academics. The study, developed in conjunction with Australian experts, found it was “highly implausible” that mines in the central Queensland basin could run profitably and there was a high chance they would end up as stranded assets. It suggested the decision to develop the highly controversial Adani mine, which recently started operation at significantly reduced scale after years of protests and delays, made little sense and was “apparently rather a political decision, not an economically driven one”.
“Don’t work for climate wreckers:” UN chief warns young people off fossil fuels (Renew Economy): United Nations secretary general António Guterres has told a group of new university graduates to avoid jobs with “climate wreckers,” as he ramps up his calls for an accelerated end to fossil fuels. In a commencement address to the US-based Seton Hall University on Tuesday, Guterres told the graduates that their skills and knowledge were needed to tackle major global challenges and that they should avoid working for companies wrecking the climate. “As graduates, you hold the cards. Your talent is in demand from multinational companies and big financial institutions,” Guterres said. “You will have plenty of opportunities to choose from. My message to you is simple: Don’t work for climate-wreckers. Use your talents to drive us towards a renewable future.”
Germany calls for G7 to phase out coal power generation in bid to halt climate change (ABC News): The Group of Seven wealthy nations can lead the way on ending the use of coal, a heavily polluting fossil fuel that is responsible for a large chunk of global greenhouse gas emissions, Germany's Climate Minister says. German Energy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday the G7 countries could accelerate a pivot away from fossil fuels by agreeing to phase out coal power generation. "The G-7 … can perhaps take on a certain pioneering role to push forward ending the use of coal for electricity and in decarbonising the transport system," he said.
Victoria urged to aim for 100 pct renewables by 2030 after glowing parliamentary report (Renew Economy): The Victorian government being called on to aim higher with its renewable energy targets, after a parliamentary inquiry found the state was well placed to overachieve on its current goals. A parliamentary inquiry into Victoria’s use of renewable energy published its final report on Thursday, detailing how the state has made strong progress towards its existing 50 per cent renewables target by 2030 – prompting calls for the Andrews government to aim higher. “While the Victorian Labor government has made important investments in renewable energy, they’re also opening up new areas for gas drilling and letting our coal-fired power plants run well past their expiry date. This is not good enough,” Victorian Greens deputy leader Ellen Sandell said. “The reality is we need bold action now, with a target of transitioning to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.”