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Last week, the Australian government published its long-awaited implementation guidelines for the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP). In simple terms, they plan to stop using taxpayer money to finance overseas fossil fuels. But does it stack up?

Jubilee Australia Research Centre’s initial analysis has found that the government’s plan is broadly compliant with the CETP agreement they signed, and that their plan honours their commitment to CETP.

“We’ve been advocating to the government for the better part of a year on what a robust CETP implementation would look like, and by most metrics they’ve hit the mark,” said James Sherley, Climate Justice Campaigner with Jubilee Australia, “but we’re particularly impressed that the government wrote CETP into law. Of the forty-one signatories to this agreement, Australia is one of just two countries that have taken steps to legislate this policy.”

The legislation in question is A Future Made in Australia (FMIA), which will provide $22.7 billion in federal government support to renewable energy industries. Although tabled in the federal Budget in May 2024, negotiations to pass FMIA through parliament reached a stalemate.

This was until two weeks ago, during a mammoth sitting week in parliament, when the government agreed to amendments proposed by the Greens. These included fossil fuel exclusion clauses that specifically prohibit FMIA, and government agency Export Finance Australia (EFA), from giving money to coal, oil and gas.

Although the legislation has been marked as the crowning achievement of Australia’s implementation of CETP, Jubilee Australia notes that there is still more work to do.

“Just last week the government published their CETP Implementation Guidelines, right off the back of passing FMIA. We’re broadly happy with it – but we note there’s still plenty of room for improvement,” said Mr Sherley.

“Australian taxpayer dollars are still being funnelled into fossil fuels through the foreign aid budget, and the CETP implementation guidelines in their current form aren’t going far enough to address that.”

“The government is also still avoiding the elephant in the room: its continued financing of domestic fossil fuels. Australia is one of just five wealthy countries responsible for over half of the world’s projected oil and gas expansion, including the $1.7 billion the Albanese government has promised to the Middle Arm gas hub in Darwin. There’s still so much work to do.”

“Positively, the government has flagged their intention to refresh the guidelines ‘as necessary’. While we’re happy to count this first step as a success, we’ll be pushing for ‘as necessary’ to be ‘as soon as possible’.”


To read Jubilee Australia Research Centre’s full analysis of Australia’s CETP Implementation Guidelines, visit our blog here.