Climate Policy Engagement Analysis
Climate Policy Engagement Overview: Alinta Energy has a high level of engagement with climate policy. The company displays a mix of positive and negative positions on climate-related regulations in Australia and largely negative positions on the energy transition, consistently advocating for a continued role of fossil fuels in the energy mix.
Top-line Messaging on Climate Policy: InfluenceMap could not find any evidence of top-line messaging on climate policy from Alinta Energy over the past two years. Although the company is clearly concerned with reducing its operational greenhouse gas emissions, as reflected in its Sustainability Report 2022/23, published January 2024, it is unclear whether Alinta Energy supports the global emission reductions called for by the IPCC.
Engagement with Climate-Related Regulations: Alinta Energy displays a mix of positive and negative positions on climate-related regulations in Australia. The company strongly advocated for several provisions that risk undermining the climate ambition of reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism in October 2022 and February 2023 consultation submissions, including the retention of ‘deemed surrender’ provisions. In addition, Alinta Energy supported a less ambitious renewable gas target than proposed in Victoria’s Renewable Gas consultation paper in an October 2023 consultation submission. However, the company broadly supported an enduring certificate mechanism for renewable electricity in a February 2023 consultation submission on the Australian Renewable Electricity Certification scheme.
Positioning on Energy Transition: Alinta Energy adopts largely negative positions on the transition of the energy mix. In a February 2024 consultation submission on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Draft 2024 Integrated Systems Plan, the company advocated for a greater role of fossil gas in the energy mix than proposed by the Draft. In addition, Alinta Energy called for policy support for the development of gas generation for renewable firming as part of a “blended energy portfolio.” In a September 2023 news article in The Australian, Alinta Energy’s CEO Jeff Dimery opposed the early retirement of coal assets in Australia to prevent “surging power bills damaging households and businesses.” However, the company supported Australia’s Capacity Investment Scheme with minor exceptions in an August 2023 consultation submission, advocating for several provisions to allow for greater inclusion of pumped hydro and biomass technologies in the Scheme.
Industry Association Governance: Alinta Energy has not disclosed a list of its industry association memberships. However, the company is a member of the Australian Energy Council and Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia, both of which are actively engaged with climate-related regulations and promote the need for additional fossil gas supply.
InfluenceMap collects and assesses evidence of corporate climate policy engagement on a weekly basis, depending on the availability of information from each specific data source (for more information see our methodology). While this analysis flows through to the company’s scores each week, the summary above is updated periodically.
This summary was last updated in Q2 2024.