Speakers at Investor Group on Climate Change’s annual summit remain hopeful that there has been enough progress that momentum in energy transition can be maintained even if political headwinds, including a US retreat, grow. Locally, there are hopes that Australia’s transition could in some ways benefit from the consequences of the incoming Trump administration.

In November 2024, MUFG hosted its second MUFG N0W conference in Sydney, focusing on the eponymous Alternative Opportunities in the Energy Transition. The 2024 event agenda covered the complexities of transition – including the role that could be played by alternative fuels in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the state of play in transition finance.

For the most part, speakers at Investor Group on Climate Change’s annual summit remain hopeful that there has been enough progress that momentum in energy transition can be maintained even if the US takes a step back. Locally, there are hopes that Australia’s transition could actually benefit from the consequences of the incoming Trump administration.

Decarbonisation of Australia’s housing sector has been slow to gather momentum and funding the process has made little impression on capital markets. But evolving standards, data availability and definitions may give mortgage lenders the tools they need to build a bigger green securitisation market.

KangaNews has announced its Market People of the Year 2023, at the KangaNews Awards Gala Dinner in Sydney on 19 March. These are the individuals who voters in the KangaNews Awards 2023 believe went above and beyond to contribute to the development of the Australian and New Zealand debt markets. There are no restrictions on the firms, role or seniority of winners – voters were simply asked to consider who contributed most to the market in either or both 2023 specifically or across the span of a career.

The KangaNews-Westpac Institutional Bank Corporate Debt Summit 2023 took place in Sydney in mid-October. A record number of delegates gathered to discuss the present and future of the Australian corporate environment, from the economic outlook and business conditions to the forthcoming impact of generative AI. In the mix was a steady but unspectacular corporate bond issuance environment that belies fundamental growth in domestic credit.

The Australian auto lending market is undergoing a similar structural shift to that experienced by the nonprime mortgage lending market a few years ago: a wide-scale withdrawal by bank balance sheets and a proliferation of new and existing nonbank lenders. Auto-backed securitisation issuance is booming as a result.

After years of lagging uptake in other global economies, uptake of electric vehicles in Australia is finally starting to accelerate. Clean Energy Finance Corporation and KangaNews hosted institutional participants in the sector at a September roundtable in Sydney, to discuss the detail on infrastructure and financing behind the headline uptake numbers.

Collapsing biodiversity and climate change are intrinsically linked. But climate change alone has been the traditional focus of sustainabile finance. Things are evolving, however, with growing recognition of biodiversity’s importance and the need for capital to take it into account.

The KangaNews Sustainable Debt Summit 2023 featured its most wide-ranging agenda ever, taking in hot button topics across the sustainable finance landscape. Sessions covered carbon offsetting and trading, the rise of biodiversity as a focus area, the shift from mitigation finance to also include adaptation, as well as a raft of other critical areas of concern.