Bowen inks deal to bring big corporate bucks to Australian renewables

Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has made a deal with his US counterpart Special Climate Envoy John Kerry overnight to allow major US corporations to invest more easily in Australian clean energy projects.

The signing commits Australia to the Clean Energy Demand Initiative (CEDI), which brings together corporations and nation-states to coordinate investment in clean energy. The initiative is partially a platform for companies to signal interest to countries welcoming investment in renewable energy.

A CEDI Letter of Intent was signed between the US and Australian governments, as well as nine corporations – Akamai, Amazon, Cisco, Google, Iron Mountain, Lululemon, PepsiCo, Salesforce, and Unilever.

According to a media statement, these companies could invest up to $2.9 billion to increase renewable deployment, a figure Bowen’s office told RenewEconomy was based on “aggregated data compiled from projections provided by the US companies.”

Bowen says the deal shows companies that Australia is open to international investment in its clean energy future.

“By setting up a favourable market environment for investment, we are signalling to US companies that we welcome international partners to support our clean energy future,” he said.

“The Initiative also sends a signal to the world that Australia is open for business as a reliable investment as the world heads towards net zero emissions by 2050.”

The signing comes at the tail end of the climate and energy minister’s five day trip to the US, where he attended the meeting of the UN General Assembly, and spruiked growing collaboration between the Australia and the US on climate.

“It is another milestone for our relationship with the US after we signed the Australia – United States Net Zero Technology Acceleration Partnership in July,” Bowen said.

The deal also follows several recent moves from multinational corporations looking to expand their investment renewable energy projects across the globe.

Amazon recently announced that it will grow its renewable energy portfolio, signalling investment in 71 new projects and an additional 2.7 gigawatts of clean energy capacity, following the company’s recent disclosure that its carbon footprint jumped nearly 20 per cent in 2021.