Australia’s Rebuke of Trump Is Electing a Climate-Forward Party

(Bloomberg) -- Australia is in a unique place when it comes to the energy transition. It is the world’s largest exporter of coal and a leading exporter of gas, yet has set a target to have 82% renewable electricity by 2030 and hit net-zero by 2050. 

Australia is also caught juggling relations between the US — its military ally — and China — its biggest trading partner — as the two superpowers compete over trade. It is an unenviable challenge for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has just been voted back into the office with an impressive new majority and also wants Australia to host the COP31 climate summit in 2026. 

This week, David Stringer, Bloomberg Green's managing editor in Asia, joins Zero to unpack Albanese’s full agenda and what his re-election means for Australia’s climate ambitions.

Listen now, and subscribe on Apple,  Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday. 

Akshat Rathi   00:00

Welcome to Zero, I'm Akshat Rathi. This week: Climate elections 2.0.

Akshat Rathi  00:17

Australia — the land of flat whites, beautiful corals and ridiculously poisonous animals — just had an election. And like Canada's election last week, it produced a surprise result.

 00:30

Albo, Albo, Albo, Albo.

Anthony Albanese  00:34

I think the Australian people have got the name. A majority Labor government promised and delivered. 

Akshat Rathi  00:45

Since Trump returned to the White House, the Australian electorate has swung away from the center-right Liberal Party and toward the incumbent center-left Labor Party. The swing has been large enough that Labor, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, now has a large majority in the lower house. Just a few months ago, Labor was projected to lose seats. It's worth understanding what happened in the Australian election, because what happens in Australia matters to the world. 

Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal and one of the largest exporters of gas, but it also has abundant sun and wind, and so it is a prime location to build renewables. It is also the world's largest producer of iron and aluminum ores, as well as the biggest exporter of lithium and other rare earth metals that are crucial for battery manufacturing and other green technologies. Which resources Australian politicians choose to exploit will shape global emissions. Australia is also hoping to host COP31, the annual United Nations Climate Summit, in 2026, and we know what happens at COP also shapes global emissions. 

The Labor Party first came to power in 2022 in what was hailed as a climate election, not just because it pushed out politicians that were opposed to climate action, but also because it saw the rise of independent candidates and a move away from the two party system. The Greens and especially the so called Teal independents, were voted in because they had a strong climate agenda, and that's one reason why the Labor Party under Albanese was able to pass Australia's first climate law in over a decade, back in 2022. 

So what happens next? How do the next three years under Albanese play out for Australia's emissions? Is the country caught between a rock and a hard place, given the trade wars and its dependence on the US and China? And are the repeated fires and floods reshaping the climate debate? To unpack it all, we're joined by David Stringer, Bloomberg Green's managing editor in Asia, who's based in Melbourne. 

Akshat Rathi  03:00

David, welcome to the show. 

David Stringer  03:01

Thanks, Akshat, glad to be here. 

Akshat Rathi  03:04

So last week we had the Canadian election, and a wave of anti-US sentiment helped Mark Carney and his Liberal Party in Canada to victory. This week we had the Australian election, which, even though all the votes haven't been counted, we can be quite certain that Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party are going to hold the majority in Parliament, and Anthony Albanese will be Prime Minister. Now, in both elections, the leaders of the opposition parties who aligned with Trump — so Pierre Poilievre in Canada and Peter Dutton in Australia — lost their seats in parliament. So Trump is proving to be quite the gift for left of center politicians, huh? 

David Stringer  03:45

Well, as you said, the final votes are still being counted as of Tuesday evening in Australia, but the result is completely beyond doubt. This was a real landslide electoral victory for Anthony Albanese and his Labor party. And just one caveat from the top about names, the Labor Party in Australia is a sort of political brethren, akin to the Liberal Party of Canada, rather than the Liberal Party here being equivalent to its opposite number in Canada. But Albanese has really had a commanding victory, and that certainly confounded expectations. I think, going into Saturday's election, there was a sense that he may have to rely on the support of potentially the Australian Green Party, potentially independent lawmakers, to get his policies through. That's not been the case. I think, in terms of the influence of Trump, quite clearly, for Mark Carney and for Canada, we saw at least a very real perceived threat to sovereignty from Trump's administration, it was a very visceral part of that campaign. For Australia, less so the direct impact of Trump. Sure, exporters really don't like the idea of tariffs. The majority of Australian exports are subject to that 10% baseline. There are some products subject to a higher tariff. But what we did see is some adoption of that MAGA-type rhetoric, you know, rather than focusing on the policy platform — and they did have one — you know, to address the economy, to address housing. But what we saw from Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party is a bit more of a focus on culture war issues, And we even had some calls for Australia's own version of DOGE. So certainly that rhetoric wasn't a help. Not only did the Liberal Party lose, Peter Dutton himself was booted out of office.

Akshat Rathi  05:39

And Australia has a three year election cycle. In the 2022 election, which we covered on the podcast — we had both a Green Party member and an independent join the podcast — it was labeled the climate election. This time around, in his victory speech this weekend, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to govern for all Australians, including for, as he said: 

Anthony Albanese  06:02

Every Australian who knows that climate change is a challenge, we must act together to meet for the future of our environment. And knows the fact that renewable energy is an opportunity we must work together to seize, for the future of our economy.

Akshat Rathi  06:23

With that in the victory speech, was climate still a big issue in this election? 

David Stringer  06:29

The truth is, no, in this election, it wasn't. And as you've said, and as the podcast covered in 2022, climate has been a really large issue. It's hard to overstate how divisive climate and energy policy has been over the past decade or two decades in Australia, and how important it's been to election results. Even if we think back to 2013, that was my first election here after moving to Australia. The key issue really was carbon pricing. The then-Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott campaigned on repealing a carbon price, won office, and ultimately carried out that policy. In 2022, the last national election, at the forefront of voters' minds was still the 2019-2020 bush fires, the wildfires that killed more than 30 people, and  that burned an area about half the size of Canada. The fact that the then-Liberal Party coalition government was seen as doing too little in terms of emissions reduction, was seen as being a negative force in global climate diplomacy, and also dismissive of technologies like electric vehicles, that was front and center of that campaign. This time around, climate has taken a huge back seat. Housing, cost of living, inflation, interest rates, they've been the key issues. And in truth, even though Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party is seen as much more committed to climate action, in reality, we've seen one or two new policies outlined during the campaign, one of them a very modest proposal to support household batteries with subsidies.

Akshat Rathi  

This is something we've seen in elections all around the world following the pandemic, that economic issues have taken precedence. And yet, when Albanese did become prime minister in 2022, because of this momentum that was there for climate, he did get to pass major climate legislation, the first in a decade, with a target to reduce Australia's emissions by 43% by 2030 relative to 2005 levels, and increase renewables to 82% of electricity by 2030. Do we see Australia's push towards green energy as something that helps the economy? And is that something that the Labor Party uses as a way to push forward its goals? Because it is clearly not on track. Even today, 47% of Australia's electricity comes from coal.

David Stringer  09:06

I think you're right to identify a couple of things there, and even the passage in that victory speech on Saturday night ties some of those threads together. I was really struck listening to his speech that climate merited only a small mention, but when it did, we heard him there tie the desire to increase the share of renewables in Australia's energy mix, he tied it to as an economic driver. And his government has really encouraged Australians to see renewables and to see investment in renewables as a positive force for job creation, to see it as a necessary renewal of communities that are currently dependent on fossil fuels, whether that's extraction of coal, whether that's gas production, or whether that's power plants. It's clear that coal is still really crucial to Australia's energy mix, but that is slowly, albeit very slowly, changing. We are seeing giant coal fired power plants gradually be retired, and in fact, that will continue, and it will accelerate over the next decade, decade and a half. All of that means that if we look at those emissions targets, Australia is arguably on track to meet its 2030 goals. So if we look at the most recent data, that's emissions in the year through to March 2024, emissions were 28.2% below that 2005 baseline. The majority of analysts think that puts Australia on a track to meet that 43% number. Now we can argue about whether that target itself is ambitious enough, and I think plenty of people would say it isn't, but what we do know is the policies that are in place and that will continue, should allow Australia to achieve that number. The harder task is hitting that renewable energy goal, getting to that 82% of electricity generation coming from clean sources, that will require a significant ramp up of deployment of solar and wind, and really crucially, it involves billions and billions more investment into the energy system in Australia, not only in generation capacity, but also in grids and in infrastructure. Whether the government can achieve that is a far more difficult question to address.

Akshat Rathi  11:28

So on this show, we've talked a bunch about the electricity sector. We're going to do a series about electrification and the bottlenecks to electrification very soon, but we've also noted that the decarbonization of electricity relative to other sectors is an easier problem. What about the other sectors in the economy? What about transport? What about industry? How is the country doing now? And does the Albanese government have policies to reduce emissions from those sectors?

David Stringer  11:58

It does, and it's right to point to other parts of the economy. Emissions from the electricity sector account for roughly a third of the total. Transport is another huge issue for Australia to tackle. 22% or thereabouts of emissions are related to transport, and we simply haven't seen the kind of improvements in that sector that other nations have. The Albanese government has implemented new vehicle efficiency standards, and they will continue to ratchet those up. And the hope for the government is that it helps to drive further adoption of electric vehicles. That should help in the passenger vehicle segment, that should see Australia begin to recover some ground. But there are bigger questions and more difficult questions when it gets to trucks and trailers, and then think about those giant, enormous vehicles we see on mine sites in parts of Australia. We've seen some trials of electrification, some use of trials of hydrogen as a fuel source. Cracking those kinds of emissions is also vital to Australia's trajectory. 

Akshat Rathi  13:08 

Australia doesn't have much of a car sector, and so most of its cars are imported. Now tell me, commuting in to work today, how many BYDs did you spot?

David Stringer  

This makes me laugh, Akshat, because this is something I literally have done, on a number of occasions, on my cycle — a 30 minute cycle — into the Bloomberg office here in the center of Melbourne. I have, in the past, often counted BYDs. And I did it precisely because it was so noticeable. In 2022, we saw the Atto 3, one BYD’s most popular sort of small SUV models, we saw that slowly introduced to Australia. My latest favorite thing is to look for the numbers of BYD Sharks. Now that is their sort of flatbed truck, or a ute as we call it here in Australia, the most popular vehicle category in Australia. And finally, there is a lower emission version, in this case a BYD’s hybrid option for that. I think I saw my first BYD Shark three or four weeks ago, and now I'm seeing them probably every other day. They're really proliferating in the way that other BYD models had in the past couple of years. And of course, Teslas remain ubiquitous as well. That said, we know from the data that actually it's only one in every 10 new car sales in Australia that's either electric or a hybrid.

Akshat Rathi  14:41

On the industrial side and on the energy side, the energy exporting side, especially, given how much Australia exports coal and gas to the world, we have seen the Albanese government come under criticism for approving new gas fields, for expanding several existing coal mines. Is there going to be any change in strategy in this coming term given that climate wasn't really a big issue driving this election? 

David Stringer  15:10

It’s really hard to see an impetus for Albanese to change the approach that he and his government have had in the first term. You know, we did have a party, the Australian Greens, at this election, that campaigned on a platform that advocated for no new oil and gas approvals. Votes are still being counted, but the Greens have had a really poor election thus far. It's that lack of impetus seemingly from voters that will probably give Albanese some comfort in his current position. As you said, his government has approved new coal mines and expansions, also new gas fields, and there's been a lot of support for those traditional fossil fuel extraction and exporting industries. And don't forget, they generate a significant proportion of export earnings for Australia. There is a really interesting test case that will come up very early in this new term. There is an approval that needs to be considered by the government to extend the lifespan of a facility called the North West shelf. It's Australia's oldest and largest liquefied natural gas export facility. It's coming towards the end of its current approved tenure. The Albanese government has to decide whether to give it a reprieve and to allow it to continue to operate in its current form, that could be a real lightning rod moment for this second term of the Albanese government. It'll really define how they view gas and coal? And I'll be honest, what we've seen in the past few years is them talk a lot about not only the export earnings, but the numbers of jobs they see as directly supported, particularly by that gas industry. And Albanese’s resources minister, Madeleine King, she's even talked about seeing gas as an important energy source through to 2050 and beyond.

Akshat Rathi  17:03

While this is happening, there is the trade war that is being sparked by Donald Trump in the US. Australia has a 10% tariff. Maybe it goes away, we don't know what's happening with tariff policies these days and how frequently they change. But for Australia, the biggest trading partner is China, and we know the US is going really hard after China with 100% plus tariffs on the country. So if, as a result of what's going to happen between the US and China, China starts slowing down, does that have a serious impact on the Australian economy as well? Given how much Australia exports to China.

David Stringer  17:43

Australia is in a really difficult position now. On the one hand, its sort of diplomatic, security, cultural partner is the US. And on the other hand, its biggest trading partner, is China. You know, Australia's economy has for so many decades prospered from its ability to export iron ore, the biggest export earner in Australia, to China to fuel China's steel industry. It's been a major contributor of GDP and we've seen huge companies here, BHP, the world's biggest miner, others like Rio Tinto, they've all benefited from that trade. China's in the midst of a property crisis, in the midst of a deceleration of its economy. That's already having an impact. Now, for the Albanese government and for a lot of that resources sector, there's also been a lot of optimism in their ability to export other raw materials, other minerals, to China. Australia has been a huge supplier of lithium raw materials. It also is an exporter of nickel, of manganese, of all of the kinds of metals and raw materials that are required for batteries, for lots of the kind of clean energy supply chains that China dominates. The risk, as you've identified, is what happens if Donald Trump and his administration put pressure on Australia to alter its relationship with China. We saw in the wake of COVID, China removed its imports of a whole list of Australian products — coal, crayfish, wine — devastating lots of those industries. So China knows it does have this ability to have a huge influence on the Australian economy. So yeah, Albanese finds himself in what is a very unenviable position, caught between two large competing superpowers.

Akshat Rathi  19:45

And China chose to restrict those imports from Australia as a result of the politics around COVID and where the virus come from. Now you have a different challenge in Donald Trump in the White House. But look, Donald Trump is also interested in rare earth minerals, in critical minerals, in lithium, in nickel. Are there any conversations at a trade level that you know are happening right now with the US government, to look at whether the US is ready to import these critical minerals from Australia instead? 

David Stringer  20:15

For a number of years, these conversations have been ongoing. In a previous role, I wrote predominantly about the mining sector. And I have been in those rooms with those US trade representatives and a group of whether it's, you know, owners of rare earth projects who are seeking funding to to develop those mines, whether it's nickel producers. This isn’t a new thing. Australian developers of mining projects have been desperately seeking funding from the US, precisely because of this ongoing desire to reduce reliance on China's supply chains. And no, I'm not aware of any current and existing conversations that are going on. But obviously, under the Biden administration, there was a real emphasis on friend-shoring in the critical mineral space, Australia was a big part of that. I can only imagine that those conversations continue with the Trump White House. And it's relatively reasonable, I think, to expect that. And if there are any of those conversations around tariffs, that critical minerals will become part of that conversation for the Trump White House, I think, very interestingly, one thing we have seen in the past few weeks and months from the Albanese government is a commitment to develop a strategic reserve of critical minerals. Having that stockpile potentially gives them some leverage if there are those conversations around tariffs, around the kind of trading relationship that Australia has with the US, maybe that is something that they can potentially leverage.

Akshat Rathi  

We'll be back with more of my conversation with David Stringer after the short break. And hey, if you're enjoying this episode, please rate and review Zero on Apple podcasts and Spotify. Your feedback really matters, and helps new listeners discover the show. Thank you. 

Akshat Rathi  22:22

It's worth noting that this election played out a little differently from the previous elections I've watched in Australia, where the opposition party in the Liberals and the coalition partner typically are quite climate denialist, and they want nothing to do with climate policy. This time around, they weren't really pushing against the net zero target that Australia has. Actually they were embracing it. They even had a plan to build a whole lot of nuclear power plants.

Peter Dutton  22:50

And today we announce seven locations that we have looked at in great detail over a long period of time that can host new nuclear sites.

Akshat Rathi  23:02

Dutton's plan, as far as I could see, was really quite expensive, and he got really badly hit in the campaign by coming up with this plan. So given that, and given the fact that there are currently no nuclear power plants in Australia, do you think there is any future for nuclear power in Australia anymore?

David Stringer  23:23

It seems really unlikely that the idea of developing a nuclear power industry from scratch is something that is feasible. Now, I get the impression that the rejection of that idea and policy wasn't necessarily that Australian voters were opposed to the idea of nuclear energy. I think the thing that people rejected in this election in Australia was the cost and the timeline. And the costings were very contentious. Dutton's party insisted that this plan, which would have been to develop seven nuclear reactors, seven nuclear power sites, some of them small modular reactors, you know, a technology that isn't something that is commercially available right now. The costing of that would have been a minimum of around 116 billion Australian dollars. The Labor Party countered with a figure of more like 600 billion Australian. And to many voters, they saw this as a strategy that would have extended the lives of existing coal fired power plants that not only have a negative climate impact, but are expensive, inefficient, and would have required potentially regional or national urban government subsidies to keep them open. And an additional problem, of course, is that in Australia it isn't even legal to have nuclear power at this point. There are federal bans in place on having nuclear power stations. 

Akshat Rathi  24:54

This time around, between January and April, there were massive floods in Queensland, in . the state that is known for mining a lot of coal. 

BBC News report  25:03

Authorities say people were stuck on the roofs of their homes as rising waters cut off entire areas. And if that wasn't enough, we can show you a crocodile seen swimming in a storm drain. This is in the town of Ingham. You can see …

Akshat Rathi  25:16

The area the floods covered was larger than Germany and France combined. Do you think that these natural disasters, just given the size of Australia and the extremities with which it's being felt, will have an impact on people wanting to support climate policies in the future? Or is it now economics first, and we'll see about climate later? 

David Stringer  25:40

It really feels like the latter at this point. And as you say, there have been some quite significant natural disaster events in the opening months of the year. You mentioned those huge floods in the west of Queensland. You know, we also had Cyclone Alfred which happened in March. The impact of that cyclone even impacted the date of the election. Albanese had intended to call the election, but instead had to defer because he and his government were busy dealing with the impact of that specific event. And even in the past few days, we've seen data, government data that showed household spending declined as a result of it. We insurers talk about millions of losses, significant events, and yet we didn't see them discussed in the election campaign. We've seen, although this wildfire, bush fire, as we call it here, season was relatively benign compared to other recent seasons, we still saw significant catastrophic fires. Again, they weren't part of the campaign. They weren't necessarily discussed. Ultimately, people won't be inured to the impact of these events, I think. And particularly as we see attribution of these events to climate change, I think we'll see policy makers take up that mantle.

Akshat Rathi  27:07

Climate policies might not be popular these days, but the climate calendar continues, and there is one coming up later in Brazil — COP30 — and countries are supposed to submit their plans for 2035, with updated, higher ambitions. And Australia, which was supposed to submit its plans by February, deferred that. We are expecting the plan to come ideally before COP30. Do we have any sense of when it will come and whether it will show the ambition that the world needs?

David Stringer  27:40

In honest truth, we don't know at this stage. It was, as you say, deferred, really for two reasons. One, there was an election pending. A lot of attention was focused on campaigning. And also, there was a realistic proposition that had there been a change in government, we would have seen a much radically different new nationally determined contribution (NDC). And in fact, Dutton's party had talked about potentially rolling back the targets for 2030, never mind 2035. 

Akshat Rathi  28:11

But look, there is another COP that comes after COP30, which is COP31. And before the election, we knew that Anthony Albanese wanted to host COP31 in Australia, even going as far as noting that Adelaide might be the location where it will be held. And typically, countries wanting to host COPs have to show that they have the ambition, that they have the desire to support the Paris Agreement. Does that matter for the targets that Australia sets out this year? 

David Stringer  28:45

Oh, absolutely. You know, having won one election and convinced the Australian voters to return him to office, you know, Albanese’s next campaign is, well, he's got to persuade a group of climate diplomats in the rotating blocks within the COP structure. He's now facing the task to convince them that it's Australia and not Turkey that ought to be the host of the 2026 UN climate conference COP31. So part of that clearly will need to be showing greater ambition and getting his homework done, getting that next NDC in as soon as possible to the UN. Certainly, we expect that to be lodged before the Belem COP. And I think it's fair to assume, you know, given the direction of travel we've seen from his government, that it will set a more ambitious target. You know, as we've discussed, there are areas of Australia's economy where climate policy is developing; transport, industrial emissions. Really importantly, there is a policy in place that covers some of the biggest polluting facilities, industrial facilities in Australia. The targets for them to cut emissions continue to ratchet up, and we'll see that kind of contribution. So I think it's fair to assume a more ambitious new plan. It's a separate question of whether all of that will be sufficient to persuade climate diplomats of Australia's credentials. 

Akshat Rathi  30:10

This has been a conversation that's been sort of dour on climate policies, and I think we are on the upswing here. So let's keep on that upswing. You're based in Melbourne, you're based in Australia, but you look over our Asian coverage for Bloomberg Green. Are there places outside of Australia where you are seeing green shoots that show why climate policies might endure or climate action might be strengthened?

David Stringer  30:41

I think there are, and that is really critical, because as we know Asia as a region accounts for more than half of total global greenhouse gas emissions. And so what happens in Asia is utterly critical to the trajectory of planetary warming. We can look at governments in places like the Philippines or Malaysia, where there's really interesting work going on to advance policies that are accommodating greater investment in renewable energy. There's a huge amount of activity across the region to catalyze and improve on emissions trading systems. There's an enormous amount of interest in the government to government trading accounts on credits too. And you know, we should see in the coming months, Indonesia take some significant steps there. But the two big economies that I spend most time, I guess, thinking about in this region, are China and India. Huge contributors to global emissions. And late last month, we saw China's President Xi Jinping address a virtual conference of fellow global leaders to talk about climate policies, to talk about the kind of commitments that are going to be needed at COP30 in Brazil. And that was really significant to me, the fact that we had President Xi committing China to more ambitious emissions reduction, committing the country to target not just carbon dioxide emissions, but all greenhouse gas emissions. Hugely significant because China's total climate footprint, its contribution of gasses outside of carbon dioxide, is absolutely mammoth — actually bigger than the majority of other countries' total emissions. Very significant intervention from Xi, and that suggests that China will continue to accelerate its development of climate policy. Clearly, as we know, there is a lot of work to do. Yes, they have had this remarkable, scarcely believable adoption of renewable energy, but it hasn't necessarily translated into genuine decarbonization of their power sector, because energy consumption continues to rise. The rhetoric from Xi, some of the policy development we're seeing, I think does suggest that we're going to start to see genuine inroads made by China on its emissions profile. When it comes to India, we're not yet seeing the same policy settings. It's a country that still has, as you know, as we both know, as we both reported on, a huge task ahead in terms of decarbonization. Yes, there are green shoots in the region, but there's still a lot of work to do, and there's still big economies with huge tasks ahead of them. 

Akshat Rathi  33:34

We've had analysts looking at Chinese emissions and recognizing that perhaps they may have peaked as of 2024. And given the economic trajectory, they might just prove to be right. But there is one aspect of what's happening in the world, especially from the Asian perspective, that I want to get your view on. Which is that a lot of the trade policies, at least in rhetoric, are about stopping China dumping cheap stuff into America or into Europe, because Europe wants its own solar manufacturing capacity and Europe wants its own electric vehicle manufacturing capacity. But if that is the garb under which these trade policies are being deployed, there are tons of other countries in the world who do not want to build their own auto manufacturing sector, or do not want to build their own solar manufacturing sector. They could become real beneficiaries of this cheap solar and EVs that are sitting in China and are not going to go anymore to the US or even to Europe, but might end up in African countries, might end up in South American countries, might end up in Australia, as we've seen with the BYDs. So those green shoots could really go and have an impact elsewhere. 

David Stringer  34:51 

Absolutely and I think when it comes to electric vehicles, when it comes to green, clean energy equipment, you're absolutely right, there is an opportunity. Yeah, I think back to comments last year from BYD and its executives. You know, they were asked about the problem that they were faced with, not really being able to sell in the US. And their response was, ‘it doesn't trouble us.’ There are so many other markets for them to exploit and to target. You know, whether it is Latin America, whether it is Europe, whether it is Australia, the same, I'm sure will prove to be the case for solar module exporters. Just look at some situations we've had. You know, even last year, like suddenly, a huge surprise in imports by Pakistan of solar equipment. We've seen that some of the faster growing regions for adoption of solar have been places in the Middle East. There are dynamic markets that China's dominant manufacturers will naturally gravitate towards. The truth is, exports to the US, for many of those Chinese manufacturers haven't ever been huge. They've only ever accounted for small amounts of their exports. And so there definitely is that happy sort of marriage of over capacity, a huge glut of manufacturing capacity, whether it's in solar and wind, in EV batteries, in EVs, and then markets that really stand to benefit from a lower cost of those clean energy products. So yeah, we absolutely could see that being a trend and a theme that we start to see accelerate in the months and years ahead.

Akshat Rathi  36:33

Thank you for listening to Zero and now for the sound of the week. That's the sound of an emu, Australia's unofficial national bird, proving, once and for all, that birds really are just dinosaurs in cute clothing. 

If you like this episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Share this episode with a friend or with someone running for office. This episode was produced by Oscar Boyd. Bloomberg’s. Head of podcast is Sage Bauman, and head of talk is Brendan Newnam. Our theme music is composed by Wonderly. Special thanks to Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam and Siobhan Wagner. I'm Akshat Rathi, back soon.

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