Australia sets new emission targets
The federal government announced on Thursday that it will set the nation’s 2035 climate target at between 62 and 70 per cent reduction from 2005, at the advice of the Climate Change Authority.
The target will form the basis for the nation’s “nationally determined contribution” as part of its commitment to the Paris Agreement. The signatories agreed that each contribution must be more ambitious than the last and reflect each country’s “highest possible ambition.” The current national target for Australia is a 47 per cent reduction by 2030 from 2005.
Reactions ranged from experts calling it a “sliding doors moment on climate” to the Climate Council saying that Australia would need a “net zero target for 2035” in order to have a strong chance of meeting the goal of keeping heating below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – after which climate impacts will become “catastrophic and severe”.
The organisation said that while 70 per cent is closer to what is needed to keep Australians safe, 62 per cent “falls dangerously short” in protecting Australians and would align to more than 2 per cent global warming – saying it’s “too timid for the times.”
Others agreed with the sentiment. Byron Fay, executive director of Climate 200, said the target was inconsistent with science and that the majority of Australians want targets of at least 75 per cent.
“Like Anthony Albanese, Tony Abbot announced a range, too. The top end was PR, and the bottom was what we actually got,” Fay said. The target was a “slap in the face to the Australians living on the growing frontlines of the climate crisis”
If you are feeling angry, upset or fired up, you’re not alone, he said.
Robots to take over construction labour
Monash University researchers are pushing for the industry to embrace the help of robots to overcome construction industry issues such as low productivity, labour shortages and high injury rates.
Researchers have developed a smart planning system that can take human fatigue into account and determine what tasks the robots can handle and what should be left to human workers.
Results from a simulation of assembling a timber floor frame for a three-bedroom unit, which was broken into 71 tasks, showed that the integration of these robots had made construction more efficient and eased physical demands on human workers.
The simulation data was taken from real data collected by the university’s mobile robot and robot arm, and measured task completion time, productivity and physical fatigue.
Federal government invests $1.1billion in low carbon fuels
The federal government has flagged its new 10 year long Cleaner Fuels Program, and alongside it, a $1.1 billion investment to produce cleaner, low carbon liquid fuels for nets, ships, construction machines and freight vehicles.
In a statement, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the first production of “drop in” cleaner fuel substitution is estimated to be before 2029. The government said the nation already has feedstock ingredients needed for fuel alternatives such as canola, sugarcane, sugar and waste – in fact, the nation exports nearly $4 billion of feedstock such as canola and tallow.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) estimates the low-carbon fuel industry could be worth $36 billion by 2050 if it taps into local refining capabilities.
The Australian Logistics Council not only gave the government accolades for the move, but it also said its members are prepared to adopt low carbon fuels at scale. Chief executive Dr Hermione Parsons said “drop in” replacements would help companies avoid costly fleet replacement while still cutting lifecycle emissions by 80 per cent compared to conventional diesel and jet fuel.
Melbourne is rising to become the data centre capital
As many experts predicted, Melbourne has stepped out of Sydney’s shadows and is on the rise to become the capital city for data centres, as the latest data centre report from property consultancy Knight Frank finds.
The report finds that the need for land and power constraints has pushed major data centre players down south, with supply in Melbourne nearly tripled in the past year to 4.7 gigawatts as of Q2 2025.
All four major US providers, AWS, Microsoft, Google and Oracle now have cloud regions based in the city, with 95 per cent of colocation (rental servers and space) now being taken up by AI workloads.
Jobs
Australian Community Housing, consisting of the merged Community Housing Industry Association (CHIA) and PowerHousing Australia, has appointed Mark Degotardi as its inaugural CEO.
Degotardi was previously the CEO of CHIA before its merger. In the past, Degotardi has also been chief executive at the Customer Owned Bank Association as well as Director for the World Council of Credit Unions.
Title Renewables has appointed Sean Macken as its head of government relations and media.
Macken had a long history in government advisory, having previously been senior policy advisor to Clare O’Neil, Housing and Homelessness Minister, as well as advisor to Julie Collins, the Housing and Small Business Minister at the time. He had also been long time strategic advisor for Committee for Sydney.