26 MAY 2026

Welcome to our news round-up. See previous issues here.

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BHP BS IN SPOTLIGHT AS EPIC DECARBONISATION WALKBACK REVEALED

A major exposé on ABC Four Corners last night, in collaboration with the Guardian, revealed for the first time irrefutable evidence of BHP reversing its commitments to meaningfully cut emissions in a credible timeframe at its world-dominant Pilbara iron ore business. The egregious walkback, as the climate crisis escalates, was laid out in hundreds of pages of leaked internal company records. 

We’ve been saying it for years – BHP’s record of (in)action on clean energy and climate is pathetic and an indictment of its board and CEO leadership. And there it was in black and white.

What BHP does matters. It is the world’s largest mining company by market capitalisation, generating revenues of US$51bn in the last financial year with underlying earnings of US$26bn and a US$18bn pre-tax profit to its shareholders. To achieve this, BHP spewed 8.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in FY2024-25. As the Guardian pointed out: this is more than 80 individual nations.

Andrew Mackenzie, BHP's CEO until 2019, said publicly that decarbonisation was a strategic imperative, with failure to act posing an existential risk. Its Pilbara decarbonisation plans were urgent and comprehensive, and involved rapid electrification of locomotives and haulage trucks, and a massive buildout of solar to reduce diesel and gas dependence. It had plans to deploy US$3bn in decarbonisation investment by 2030 to underpin its climate targets and secure its licence to operate.

Then it all went to the proverbial. 

BHP shelved its board-approved 50MW solar and 20MW battery project at the huge Jimblebar mine shortly after its 2023 funding approval, sparking internal staff backlash. A planned massive 500MW hybrid power project – enough to power a small city – will not proceed in its current form and is denied funding until at least 2031, missing its initially targeted 2027 start. A proposed iron ore processing facility, designed to produce higher purity ore for steelmaking, was quietly dumped. It could have cut global emissions by 1.7 million tonnes annually. And despite plans to trial electric haulage trucks, BHP is investing in massive new fleets of heavily polluting diesel trucks – the key contributor to its emissions profile – including a $500 million purchase for Jimblebar and planned use at its new Ministers North mine. This fleet could remain operational through 2040.

In 2024, CEO Mike Henry introduced BHP’s Climate Transition Action Plan (CTAP, aka CRAP), which sounds great except for it being entirely hollow. BHP massively delayed its entire decarbonisation trajectory until after 2030 – trashing its stated intention to address climate risk and abrogating its corporate responsibility to act in this critical decade.

Astonishingly, the “plan” forecasts BHP's global emissions will rise from FY2025-FY2030. Up is not down. There is currently categorically zero chance of BHP’s plans meeting its net zero by 2050 commitment.

The Guardian reports that a May 2025 internal memo to senior executives confirmed that BHP’s sense of urgency to source renewables had “diminished” and its goal of achieving net zero in the Pilbara by 2050 had a “low probability of success”. Three scenarios for the decarbonisation of diesel fleets were put forward, which we might call too little too late, you can’t be serious, and sweet FA: The FY2035 deployment case would defer the introduction of electric trucks and locomotives to 2035; the just-in-time case deferred deployment to 2040; and the third option was, believe it or not, to “do nothing”.

In the knowledge that this story was coming, BHP and associates have been vigorously cranking up the spin machine. A curiously timed pamphlet, released last week by economics consultancy Mandala, which has close ties to the PMO, breaks down top 20 ASX listed industrial corporates' global scope 1 and 2 emissions profiles in FY2025 vs FY2020, conveniently pitching BHP as a corporate leader. BHP then mounted an ad campaign trumpeting the trumped-up claims. There is no mention of who funded the perfectly timed Mandala intervention.

To call Mandala’s brochure misleading is generous. It primarily relies on the electrification of BHP’s huge Chilean copper mining operations to boost BHP’s decarbonisation credentials and obscures BHP’s complete dereliction of its responsibilities in the Pilbara, with much of BHP’s Australian emissions reductions from the closure of its nickel assets in WA. Production-based emissions intensity would tell a different story on BHP’s progress, and that of other giants like Rio featured by Mandala – despite the coordinated reporting in The Australian engineered to promulgate the Mandala talking points while bashing genuine decarbonisation leader Fortescue.

Why the heel dragging by BHP? Follow the money – the billions paid to the big miners each year by the federal government to maintain their imported diesel addiction. 

In Australia, BHP extracts from the taxpayer a $620m annual imported diesel refund covering the staggering 1.2 billion litres of this climate-destroying fuel it uses each year in its mining operations. Diesel powers >60% of BHP’s total energy needs. This dependency undermines our national energy independence, which requires an accelerated transition to homegrown renewables, and continues to put Australia’s energy security at risk. It persists in an increasingly fraught global geopolitical landscape riven by energy wars – see PM Anthony Albanese begging our trade partners for supply as the global oil supply shock rolls on. And BHP is the #1 beneficiary of this insane structural barrier to mining industry decarbonisation and the massive opportunities for onshoring and reskilling of our workforce. 

Highly coincidental too that Aaron Morey, chief of WA’s mining lobby, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy, published a fact-light op ed in AFR in the days preceding the Four Corners/ Guardian exclusive, warning against any change to the diesel refund. Morey doubled down on his commentary on Four Corners, asserting that the technology required to run fully electrified haulage fleets at scale simply does not exist yet.

Morey faithfully parrots BHP, which spuriously claims the technology for decarbonisation and electrification is not ready. This is patently false. BHP bragged that in 2022 it fully decarbonised its Chilean mining operations via renewable energy PPAs and electrification. Its counterpart Rio spouts the same BS, with CEO Kellie Parker claiming the technology for diesel replacement isn’t commercialised. Yet Rio's gargantuan US$23bn Guinea Simandou iron ore operation is commercially deploying EV mining trucks from China’s XCMG today. Woeful.

Meanwhile Fortescue is investing US$6-7bn this decade in electrification, decarbonisation and energy security in the Pilbara – a world leading effort to position Australian iron ore mining at the forefront of emissions reduction. It is partnering with the best cleantech firms in the world, who happen to mostly be domiciled in China – Australia's #1 trade partner and biggest iron ore customer. In so doing it is building important geopolitical bridges for Australia even as world trade is undermined by the US. 

Despite being a leading beneficiary of the diesel subsidy, Fortescue is a vocal advocate of urgent reform, as demonstrated by CEO Dino Otranto on Four Corners. Fortescue supports CEF’s position that the subsidy should be capped at $50m per firm pa, with recipients required to invest any refund above that threshold in decarbonisation, or forgo that amount. This reform would convert a massive headwind to energy transition in mining to a Transition Tax Incentive, instantly accelerating decarbonisation and enabling Australia to grasp the immense green industrial opportunities of the emerging net zero global economy. A tightening of the Safeguard Mechanism is also key to incentivising decarbonisation, with a progressive ratcheting up of minimum Australian Carbon Credit Unit prices, to make polluters like BHP meaningfully cut emissions or pay.

The facts are that BHP, like Rio Tinto, Hancock Prospecting and Fortescue for the past 6 years have tapped into literal rivers of gold from their iron ore exports, booking return on capital ranging from 30% pa up to 70% pa. BHP's FY2025 results for WA iron ore cite an "5 year average return of ~65%", which any company would kill for. They have the capital firepower to massively invest, accelerate electrification and decarbonisation of the Pilbara now as Fortescue is doing, and lead the world. Yet they sit on their hands. The region has a pathetic renewable energy penetration of just 2% versus 44% for Australia's national grid. Hancock's owner outright rejects the climate science. BHP and Rio give lip-service as they hoard the bullion.

We need an end to the Big Australian’s gutless reversals on climate, cheap talk and abysmal underinvestment in Australian decarbonisation. Equally, we need an urgent show of political courage from the government to decouple BHP and its counterparts from the firehose of diesel cash they have clamped themselves to at the expense of the people and the planet.

>>> See Tim on ABC Four Corners, with commentary also from Naomi Hogan at ACCR, Professor Ross Garnaut at The Superpower Institute, and independent federal MP for Curtin Kate Chaney.

>>> See Tim’s commentary in The Guardian’s series of articles on The BHP Files, here, here and here. And an article and op ed  in Renew Economy, and Ch7 News WA forthcoming.

>>> Read Tim’s commentary in SCMP about how China has been using its heft as the world’s dominant iron ore buyer to push global mining companies to adopt the yuan, with several firms already making the switch, incentivised by China’s relatively low interest rates – part of a push to shift the global dominance of USD and globalise the yuan.

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ACCELERATING RENEWABLES DRIVES NEM ELECTRICITY PRICE DEFLATION

Amazing to see electricity price DEFLATION being delivered in Australia in the middle of the latest fossil fuel war, with its resulting hyperinflation of global fossil fuel prices.

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has released its final Default Market Offer (DMO) for FY2026-27 (starting 1 July 2026). Residential flat rate standing offer prices will fall by between 3.4% and 5.0% in NSW and by 7.2% in South East Queensland compared to last year, while South Australian households will have a modest increase of 1.4%.

Small businesses will see reductions across all three regions, with prices decreasing by 6.8% to 12.1% in South Australia, 10.4% to 14.0% in South East Queensland, and 9.0% to 20.9% in NSW, depending on whether their standing offer uses a flat rate or time of use tariff.

Earlier this week the Essential Services Commission delivered a further reduction in the Victorian Default Offer (VDO). The final VDO for FY2026–27 will be on average 5% lower than last year for households. For small businesses the price is down on average 6%, cutting $241 off their annual electricity bill. 

A major contributing factor is the record high investments into clean energy by Australia's public – with over 400,000 home battery installs totalling >11GWh achieved in just the last 11 months, supporting the 3GW pa of rooftop solar installs. 

Well done Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in convincing Treasurer Jim Chalmers to back your investment program to the tune of $8bn. Money very well spent, showing how fast consumer energy resources can be deployed.

>>> CEF’s post on this excellent development.

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CHINA’S ELECTRICITY SECTOR DECARBONISATION MOMENTUM SLOWS 4MCY2026

CEF is delighted to announce Li Ang has agreed to join our small think Australia-China focussed tank this month. Li has worked in Chinese renewables firms, advocacy and eNGO teams in China before recently moving to Sydney with her family.

China's value-added industrial production growth for the first four months of 2026 (4MCY2026 YTD) was 5.6% year-on-year (yoy), according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Growth was led by high-technology manufacturing, which say YTD 2026 growth of 12.6% yoy.

China’s total passenger vehicle sales were -5.0% yoy YTD 2026, and new energy vehicle (NEV) sales were also a very weak -3.8% yoy, after huge NEV growth in CY2025. Domestic NEV sales in the month of April 2026 were +3.8% yoy, a distinct contrast to the -18.8% yoy total passenger vehicle market trend.

In the electricity sector, total electricity generation was +5.4% yoy YTD 2026, with a very robust +6.5% yoy reported for the month of April 2026 - Figure 1. Trump’s war on Iran did nothing to dent the robust Chinese economy.

China’s electricity capacity expansion continues to lead the world, unfortunately in all areas. China added a depressing 28GW of fossil powered capacity YTD 2026, +26% yoy,  as well as 3.6GW of new nuclear and 2.5GW of new hydro. Variable renewable energy adds totaled 74.6GW YTD 4MCY2026, -41% yoy - with solar installs down 51% yoy even as wind installs grew 7% yoy. Zero emissions capacity additions were still a dominant 74% of China’s total YTD 4MCY2026.

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ENDLESS SUPPLY OF HOT AIR FROM GAS CARTEL, AS GOVERNMENT FOLDS AGAIN

The hucksters and shysters of the gas cartel were out in force in the AFR last week, venting against the Albanese government’s efforts to introduce a modest 20% domestic reservation – standard practice in other gas-exporting nations. There they all were: Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher, peak body Australian Energy Producers’ lobbyist Cecile Wake, Woodside Energy chief Liz Westcott, Beach Energy’s Brett Woods, and Texas billionaire Bryan Sheffield, an investor in the Beetaloo boondoggle Daly Waters Energy.

“If you want to watch how to kill an industry, look at Argentina,” Gallagher claims, despite Woodside and Santos shares rising 30-35% this year on the back of the escalating Middle East conflict. “We are going to face gas shortages,” he bleats, ignoring that east coast production has tripled over the past decade while domestic demand has plunged.

There is, of course, no mention that LNG exporters are generating an extra $2bn per month in profits, nor that the PRRT continues to underperform.

There is also no reference to the climate crisis or the inflationary impact of high gas prices, as domestic consumers and industry continue to bear the cost of policy failure. Australia’s manufacturing share of GDP is now at historic lows, as high energy costs undermine industry and force ongoing government intervention, compounding the cost of the cartel’s rapaciousness to the Australian taxpayer.

Meanwhile, the AFR amplifies industry vested interest lobbying while companies collect massive, largely royalty-free war-driven profits. Compare domestic gas prices in the US or Qatar to LNG export prices: more than 80% lower! The gap is extraordinary. Limiting superprofits to exported volumes – ‘only’ 80% of the gas extracted here – is long overdue.

This against the backdrop of Treasurer Jim Chalmers again revising down expected PRRT revenue while PM Albanese capitulated to the cartel ahead of the Federal Budget and ruled out a 25% export levy advocated by everyone from the ACTU to members of the LNP to the chief of the Commonwealth Bank. 

When will the government act in the national interest and stand up to this endless crap and special pleading, get to work for the people who employ them, and bring the cartel to heel?

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>>> In other news, Tim will be speaking at a town hall event with Dr Monique Ryan, Independent MP for Kooyong, on the topic Securing Energy Independence. Tuesday 9 June 2026, 7.30-9.00pm at Hawthorn Arts Centre, 360 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn, Melbourne

Register here: https://lighterfootprints.org/event/securing-energy-independence/

>>> Tim on Praveen Gupta’s Diversity blog “I think we are witnessing the equivalent of the decline of the Roman empire”.

>>> In case you missed it, hear Tim, with David Leitch and Giles Parkinson on the Energy Insiders podcast dissecting the Federal Budget.

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