How the world’s biggest green bank is electrifying Australia
Zero: The Climate Race
Bloomberg
4.7 • 219 Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Trillions of dollars are needed to fund the climate transition, with both the private sector and governments required to contribute. Australia’s answer is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), the world’s largest green bank.
Established by the government in 2012 with an initial funding of A$10 billion ($6.5 billion), it was tasked with financing green projects and ambitious Australian climate startups at a time when large-scale investments in things like wind and solar were still seen as too risky for most private banks. Despite early efforts by opposition parties to abolish the bank, over the past 10 years it has made itself an essential part of Australia's energy transition and, in June, received an extra A$20.5 billion to help the country meet its target of 82% renewables by 2030.
This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with CEFC chief executive officer, Ian Learmonth, to learn how this huge amount of money will be spent, why the CEFC had so many enemies early on, and what kind of innovative startups and clean-tech projects the organization is looking to fund.
For more:
- Our episode with Jigar Shah, a $9 Billion Deal to Supercharge US Cleantech
- Our episode on Australia’s new climate politics
- A transcript of this episode
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Gilda Di Carli and Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week, elections, electrification and energy storage. |
| 0:19.5 | Over the past few weeks, I've had the pleasure of traveling to Singapore and Australia, |
| 0:23.4 | visiting startups, companies, and even the Great Barrier Reef, to meet the people behind |
| 0:28.3 | some of the most pioneering climate solutions coming out of these regions. |
| 0:33.0 | We'll be playing some of those interviews on Zero over the next few weeks, and we begin |
| 0:37.2 | in Sydney, where I met Ian Learman. Zero over the next few weeks. And we begin in Sydney, |
| 0:38.3 | where I met Ian Learmanth. He's the chief executive officer of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation |
| 0:44.0 | or the CEFC, which describes itself as the world's largest Green Bank. The CEFC was set up by |
| 0:51.9 | the Labor Greens Coalition government in 2012 with an initial |
| 0:55.5 | funding of 10 billion Australian dollars or 6.5 billion US dollars. |
| 1:00.7 | It was tasked with financing green projects at a time when large-scale investments in things |
| 1:05.1 | like wind and solar were seen as too risky for many private players. |
| 1:10.3 | As uncontroversial as that might sound today, it almost never happened. |
| 1:14.5 | The CEFC was nearly shut down in 2013 when the climate-sceptic Liberal National Coalition |
| 1:20.1 | government took power with a campaign promise of closing the bank. |
| 1:24.7 | There was a lot of drama, but the fatal event didn't come to pass. |
| 1:29.1 | Now the CEFC has become a big part of the energy transition in Australia, with over |
| 1:34.7 | $12.5 billion invested due date. In 2022, the CEFC celebrated its 10th year and its star is still |
| 1:42.6 | rising. It has just received $20.5 billion Australian dollars from the government to accelerate |
| 1:49.1 | the country's energy transition. |
| 1:51.6 | For context, last year the country's total investment in all things energy transition was about |
| 1:57.3 | $23 billion Australian dollars. |
... |
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