Climate Tech News

Dealmaking fell three straight quarters to pandemic levels.

Amid warnings of record temperatures and raging wildfires in Europe, many people are asking – what can I do about climate change? More than you think, perhaps

Why bringing back elephants, sharks and other big beasts could be surprisingly useful in the race to bring down emissions

The flow of fossil fuel dollars into climate-tech VC deals jumped in recent years—but accepting checks from "big oil" isn't a straightforward proposition for some green startup founders.

The world faces the harsh realities of climate change, with rising sea levels, severe droughts, and catastrophic wildfires becoming more frequent and intense. The need for solutions to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change has never been more pressing

The Italian government has approved a draft law that would ban food grown in laboratories, including artificial meat, as it seeks to “safeguard our nation’s heritage”.

An Australian company lifted the glass cloche on a meatball made of lab-grown cultured meat using the genetic sequence from the long-extinct pachyderm, saying it was meant to fire up public debate about the hi-tech treat.

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) has launched a climate initiative aimed scaling and accelerating climate-related corporate engagement.

The Biden administration's 2024 Proposed Budget signals a sustained future for the climate tech sector.

Recent articles have opined that the slew of layoffs from large tech firms could help channel more talent into jobs that leverage technology to address climate change. Some have even suggested that big tech’s “implosion” could be a watershed moment for moving more talent into the sector.

The federal government has secured the support it needs to implement its central climate change commitment, after reaching a deal with the Greens following months of safeguard mechanism negotiations.

Rich Lister and philanthropist Alan Schwartz will on Wednesday commit $100 million to investments in carbon reduction initiatives, with millions more to advocate for policy and regulatory change, and insists the money is far from charity.

Australia’s Allume Energy has the world’s only technology capable of sharing rooftop solar with multiple units in residential apartment buildings.

Bucking economic headwinds, the climate crisis is a key driver of growth in Australian startups, a benchmark report shows.

The world is facing an imminent water crisis, with demand expected to outstrip the supply of fresh water by 40% by the end of this decade, experts have said on the eve of a crucial UN water summit.

Hub71, Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, has found a new ally to help startups gain access to capital, with its recent partnership with Investible, the Asia-Pacific based venture capital firm.

In an extraordinary action to restore confidence in America's banking system, the Biden administration on Sunday guaranteed that customers of the failed Silicon Valley Bank will have access to all their money starting Monday

Funding to foodtech and agtech (agrifoodtech) startups reached $29.6 billion in 2022, down 44% year-over-year (YoY), according to a new report from food, agriculture, and climate-tech venture capital firm AgFunder, in collaboration with global ecosystem partner Temasek.

Australian climate technology company Rumin8 has announced the appointment of a new board member and board observer, both with significant climate-tech company development experience, in an effort to enhance its climate-tech development experience.

Sophia Hamblin Wang and her company MCI is powering the carbon economy with carbon dioxide taken from the atmosphere

Australian researchers have discovered a substance that converts air into electricity, opening the way for future devices to be powered by the air around them.

Draft regulation is response to US subsidies and Chinese state support for green-tech sector

The company founded by Tesla cofounder and former chief technical officer J. B. Straubel, has a mission to “build a circular supply chain to power a sustainable world and accelerate the reduction of fossil fuels.”

Fossil fuel cars emit 12 times more carbon dioxide per mile than electric ones

Nations have reached a historic agreement to protect the world's oceans following 10 years of negotiations. The High Seas Treaty aims to help place 30% of the seas into protected areas by 2030, to safeguard and recuperate marine nature.

The NSW government is investing $64 million into the state’s the first two green hydrogen hub projects, in the Illawarra and Moree, as it also opens up applications for $1.5 billion in concessions for large-scale green hydrogen producers.

Climate tech startups in those three cities raised over €1bn in 2022, and each is home to at least one green unicorn

More than 25m panels are expected to be installed across the state over the next decade

The Greens and David Pocock seek big changes to the safeguard mechanism, and a climate trigger. In the meantime, the policy allows companies to entirely offset emissions with sham credits. By Mike Seccombe.

Atlassian cofounder and renewables advocate Mike Cannon-Brookes has backed a new fund to finance grid-scale battery projects via his family fund, Grok Ventures.

Legislation could see companies fined millions of pounds for making unproven environmental assertions to sell their products

Nokia has announced one of the first budget Android smartphones designed to be repaired at home allowing users to swap out the battery in under five minutes in partnership with iFixit.

With climate change driving more and more extreme flooding events, engineers are increasingly turning to nature for solutions.

Australia may be the world’s leader in mammal extinction, with accelerating threats to native biodiversity in a changing climate – but successful conservation efforts may provide a glimmer of hope

The Australian government plans to make an area about the size of Germany in the Southern Ocean a marine zone, strengthening protections around Macquarie Island for millions of penguins and seals.

It’s been a spicy week for raises this week with a whopping $178 million being split across six startups, with the largest sitting at $105 million on its own.

All sides are busy trying to figure out who would have more to lose if the safeguard mechanism dies in the Senate.

It wasn’t long ago that oil giants were trying to outdo one another with promises to cut carbon emissions and take on climate change.

The capital's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) saw harmful pollution decrease in central and inner London, according to a new City Hall report.

Decarbonisation startup Loam, which uses microbes to sequester carbon in farm soils, has raised $105 million in a Series B.

Australia can slash its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by over 80 per cent in five years using existing clean technology, a report has found. This is almost double the Federal Government’s current target of 43 per cent from 2005 levels.

The energy analyst says we can’t wait for more innovative energy sources to become viable

These days climate investing is hot — if you will pardon the awful pun — but the days of just raising a fund and calling it “climate focused” are well and truly over.

Mushroom protein player Fable has roped in celebrity backers in its push to dive deeper into the US, UK and Asian markets, with Australian media personality Osher Gunsberg investing in the company’s latest funding round.

For the first time in history, Australia has blocked the creation of a coal mine under environmental laws.

A hybrid solar + storage facility comprised of 1,300 second-life EV battery packs is fully operational in California.

A California startup using rocks to soak up carbon dioxide from the air has teamed up with a Canadian company to mineralize the gas in concrete, a technological tie-up that is a first and they say could provide a model for fighting climate change globally.

Global investment in the low-carbon energy transition totaled $1.1 trillion in 2022 – a new record and a huge acceleration from the year before – as the energy crisis and policy action drove faster deployment of clean energy technologies.

Uber and Lyft, the two biggest ride-sharing companies in the New York City area have been told by Eric Adams, the city’s mayor, to clean up their fleet by 2030.

The country is plummeting in the global rankings of innovative nations and risks becoming a low-paid, services economy unless it reconsiders investment in deep tech.

Climate startups now have a growing talent pool to choose from, and hiring is picking up, according to recruiters, venture capitalists, and workers who already made the jump from Big Tech to climate tech.

Early modelling suggests the world’s climate could shift to an El Niño pattern towards the end of 2023, which is likely to increase the global average temperature

2022 was a significant year for clean tech investment growth on the platform with clean energy growth outperforming all other sectors with 40% more investors moving into the space in 2022 than the year before.

Transport companies, miners, manufacturers and electricity producers across NSW will be forced to take on the lion’s share of cutting emissions under a nation-first carbon crackdown by the state’s environmental regulator.

Climate change crusader and outspoken cattle industry critic Bill Gates has thrown his support behind an Australian start-up that has developed technology to slash methane emissions from beef and dairy industries.

Researchers harness sunlight to harvest energy and food together, utilizing the full spectrum of light to improve outputs.

The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading certifier and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.

The founders of Envato and neobank Up have backed Brisbane-based fintech Bloom Impact Investing, as the investing app surpassed $1.6 million in funds under management and 200 customers.

Decades of research by scientists at Exxon accurately predicted how much global warming would occur from burning fossil fuels, according to a new study in the journal Science.

Funding for startups aiming to decarbonize the environment rose 4% in 2022

A University of Sydney Professor developing cutting edge solar technology has received $2.78 million in research funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to commercial the idea in a partnership with Sydney startup SunDrive.

Australia and California have much in common – sun, surf and an over-representation of screen talent. With a population of 40 million people, the US state is bigger than our 26 million, but that's not wildly different when comparing jurisdictions.

Delivering a "climate-positive" Olympics and Paralympic Games in Brisbane 2032 will require "radical thinking" that puts the needs of the planet above the wants of humans, experts say.

A dramatic business bust-up between billionaires Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes has resulted in the collapse of the company behind a $35 billion solar power export project to Singapore, just when it was gearing up for a major campaign to put together funding for construction.

An independent review into the government's carbon credit scheme has rejected suggestions it is fundamentally flawed, but has made a series of recommendations to improve its transparency and integrity.

As we look back at 2022, it’s not all doom and gloom when it comes to climate action. Progress has been made on a number of fronts, with the growth in renewable energy leading the charge - in the EU, solar power soared by almost 50 per cent this year.

Some people are calling 2022 the year the party ended. Others are calling it the hangover, or even the new normal. What we can all agree on is that 2022 was a year of reckoning for the venture capital (VC) industry.

Governments appear to have signed a once-in-a-decade deal to halt the destruction of Earth’s ecosystems, but the agreement seems to have been forced through by the Chinese president, ignoring the objections of some African states.

Earlier this month, scientists shot a cluster of lasers at hydrogen isotopes and—for the briefest of moments—got an inkling of what it would be like to control a star.

Climasens, a climate intelligence start-up, has received a boost to scale its impact through the Humanitech Lab. The innovation program is spearheaded by Humanitech, an initiative of Australian Red Cross, focused on harnessing technology and social innovation to meet humanitarian need.

The NSW Government has declared its fourth renewable energy zone – and the first to include access to offshore wind – as it races to put in the infrastructure for new wind, solar and storage to replace the country’s biggest fleet of coal generators.

Carbon management startup Avarni has raised $3 million in venture funding, less than 12 months after launching.

Banks and other big businesses will be forced to come clean with the public about what they are doing to cut emissions under plans put forward by the Albanese government.

Global renewable power capacity growth is set to double over the next five years, driven by energy security concerns in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

About half of Australia’s biggest listed companies have plans to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, our new analysis has found.

Prince William and The Earthshot Prize revealed the 2022 Earthshot Prize winners – an accomplished group of entrepreneurs and innovators spearheading ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet. Each winner was awarded a £1 million prize at the second-annual Earthshot Prize awards ceremony

A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme warns that investment in nature-based solutions must double by 2025 if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as well as halting biodiversity loss and progressively increasing land degradation.

Australia is well-positioned to be a world leader on climate change. Our geographic position, our wealth of natural resources and our strengths in advanced manufacturing, technology and trade give us a unique perspective that should influence global thinking on climate.

Climate action frameworks have yet to support climate-smart startups. That needs to change.

Carbon markets-focused products and solutions platform Rubicon Carbon announced its official launch today, aiming to “deliver greater scale, confidence, and innovation across all facets of the carbon market.”

A well-known chocolate brand is switching to paper packaging in a bid to avoid excess plastic waste.

Climate tech funding represented more than a quarter of venture capital investment in 2022 so far, and has been in the upper half of the 20-30% range since the start of 2018, according to PwC’s new State of Climate Tech 2022 report.

The Albanese government will funnel $500 million into the commercialisation of clean energy technologies through a rebadged version of a $1 billion fund first proposed by the former Coalition government.

The City of Casey, through its Circular Economy Living Lab Grant, has awarded funding to food sustainability start-up Forkful which will enable it to launch its food waste platform in the area.

The biennial State of the Climate report series draws on the latest climate research, encompassing observations, analyses and projections to describe year-to-year variability and longer-term changes in Australia’s climate. The 2022 State of the Climate report is now available.

The PhotonAssay™ technology was developed by #CSIRO. It delivers faster, safer, more accurate, and environmentally friendly analysis of gold for the minerals industry.

As the role of coal declines and ends in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM), huge growth in dispatchable energy storage capacity will be needed in the mix, along with other technologies.

Thousand of technology workers are being axed, creating an unexpected boon for certain climate firms

What the health consequences of a hotter climate are and how extreme heat is managed will be two of the defining questions of this decade, and are addressed by several papers in this issue of The Lancet.

Cities are warming twice as fast as the global average. The Nature for Cool Cities Challenge seeks to enhance the number of nature-based cooling solutions within built-up city surface area

Amazon and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are launching a public-private partnership to address the gender inequities that exist for women in the climate finance ecosystem and to support female entrepreneurs with the resources they need to accelerate climate change innovations.

Solar power, electric cars, grid-scale batteries, heat pumps—the world is crossing into a mass-adoption moment for green technologies.

The IKEA Foundation, a strategic philanthropy funded by IKEA owner INGKA Foundation, announced today plans to deploy €600 million in climate funding by 2025. Key areas of deployment identified by the foundation include stimulating a shift to alternative and plant-based proteins, and reducing methane emissions in agriculture.

‘The wild west approach needs to end,’ says climate scientist Bill Hare, amid warning targets should be met by cuts in absolute emissions

As the world’s leaders converged on the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 summit this month, for the annual progress check on the planet’s shared imperative to reduce carbon emissions and global warming, the growing ranks of Australia’s climate tech entrepreneurs were once again thankful for the spotlight.

The global market for climate tech was $13.8 billion in 2021 and is expected to jump to $147.5 billion by 2032, according to Future Market Insights. One reason for rise is responding to disaster caused by climate change.

Country Road will invest $1.5 million in grant funding into projects driving climate solutions in the Australian fashion industry over the next three years in what it claims is a first for a local retailer.

In events described as unprecedented, demand for electricity from the grid plummeted to record lows in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia during the past two months.

The NSW government will create several zero-emission zones across Sydney, including at Blackwattle Bay and Central, as Infrastructure Minister Rob Stokes warned the city risked falling behind other global metropolises without immediate climate action.

Supply chain traceability company, Everledger, has revealed the launch of a world-first battery passport pilot with automotive manufacturer, Ford, to ensure responsible battery recycling from electric vehicles.