Today in our editorial series – Towards 3% – turbocharging our national innovation effort – innovation policy analyst Dr John Howard shines light on why Australian R&D is going backwards. In this, the second part of a two-part series, Dr Howard discusses the reasons behind the fall in R&D spending, pointing the finger at a…
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has launched the first funding round of a $400 million funding programme to support emissions reduction at existing industrial facilities in regional Australia. The Industrial Transformation Stream (ITS) is part of the Powering the Regions Fund, with ARENA working closely with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment…
The largest ever Commonwealth funding programme for renewable hydrogen, the $2 billion Hydrogen Headstart scheme, is now open for applications. The federal government’s Hydrogen Headstart program will help tap into the enormous global pipeline of private investment in hydrogen, hoping to attract investment from other locations. The United States’ $740 billion Inflation reduction Act and…
The federal government has engaged an eminent academic to study the need for a carbon tariff to protect local manufacturers from unfair competition from imports which are not subject to restrictions on emissions of CO2. The move opens the way for import tariffs to be applied on carbon intensive products such as cement and steel…
By Sarah Wilson, University of Technology Sydney and Rachael Wakefield-Rann, University of Technology Sydney There’s growing global concern about potential risks to human health and the environment from a group of industrial chemicals commonly known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals”. While the full extent of harm from PFAS is still emerging, the fact these chemicals…
