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Mountain guide Eduardo Mostazo was born and raised in Cáceres, a small city in southwest Spain close to Portugal, which has suffered a rural exodus. Now it faces a new threat: a proposed lithium mine which Mostazo and other local activists fear could contaminate water sources and the nearby mountain, threatening birds such as the endangered Spanish imperial eagle.

Their struggle to protect the pristine environment highlights a growing challenge for Europe, as the continent races to start extracting and producing minerals like lithium that are critical to the clean energy transition, instead of relying on imports from China and other emerging economies.

Yet, while bureaucrats in European capitals are under pressure to secure supplies on their soil, communities where the resources are located question whether they will benefit from their exploitation.

They told Climate Home they need more information before agreeing to host mining projects on which they feel they have not been adequately consulted, and want stronger guarantees that the rush for minerals won’t harm the nature on which local livelihoods depend.

Explainer: Why the world is racing to mine critical minerals

In Cáceres, mining company Extremadura New Energies (ENE) – a subsidiary of Australian Infinity Lithium – has promised to create 1,500 jobs during the mine’s construction and 700 jobs during 26 years of operation.

Nonetheless, locals worry that a mine could damage today’s economic mainstays of tourism and agriculture. “There is no talk of alternatives,” said Mostazo. “When a proposal comes from a big company with lots of millions, there’s the impression that the politicians don’t really investigate [the impacts], they go blind with the promise.”

Locals in the village of Acebo, in Sierra de Gata, located in west Extremadura, gather on the main square to protest a proposed lithium mine, Spain, Dec 11, 2024. (Photo: Natalie Donback)

A local farm worker harvests olives near where Extremadura New Energies’ lithium processing plant would be located, Cáceres, Spain, Dec 10, 2024. (Photo: Natalie Donback)

Locals in the village of Acebo, in Sierra de Gata, located in west Extremadura, gather on the main square to protest a proposed lithium mine, Spain, Dec 11, 2024. (Photo: Natalie Donback)

A local farm worker harvests olives near where Extremadura New Energies’ lithium processing plant would be located, Cáceres, Spain, Dec 10, 2024. (Photo: Natalie Donback)

Breaking Europe’s mineral dependence

As part of its efforts to boost clean energy and electrification, the European Commission wants to shrink its dependence on Chinese-produced minerals by ensuring that at least 10% of critical raw materials such as lithium, copper and nickel are extracted within Europe by 2030.

The International Energy Agency estimates that global demand for lithium – a key component in electric car batteries – could increase by up to 42 times by 2040 from 2020 levels. Currently, the EU imports four-fifths of its extracted lithium and 100% of its processed lithium.

Santos Barrios, professor of crystallography and mineralogy at the University of Salamanca, said Europe’s mineral dependency “is a very big problem” because those materials come from countries that often lack social and environmental protection.

“They import it from other places where it is much cheaper to extract it than here, but at the cost of losing many things along the way,” he explained. The ideal situation, he added, would be to no longer rely “on countries that are not completely transparent, such as China”.

To speed up progress ahead of its 2030 deadline, in March the European Commission approved 47 strategic mining projects, which will benefit from fast-tracked permitting processes and easier access to EU funding.

Spain and Finland are the EU countries with the most strategic projects involving extraction or integrated extraction and processing of critical raw materials, with five projects each.

ENE applied but was not selected due to delays in the permitting process, with its request for a licence still sitting with the regional government, which has requested the company to submit more detailed information on the project.

Requests for project documents denied

Only 40 kilometres north, in Cañaveral, meanwhile, many locals were disappointed to learn that a nearby mining project led by the company Lithium Iberia had made the list.

A citizens’ group opposing the mine – worried about the potential impact on water sources and nature – is preparing a letter to the president of the European Parliament asking for access to the project documentation, including its environmental impact assessment and the methodology used to evaluate applications.

The European Commission has previously denied such requests, citing it as sensitive business information, said Julio César Pintos Cubo from the green group Ecologistas en Acción.

Others, such as Friends of the Earth Europe, have also argued that the strategic projects under the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act erode transparency and have failed to engage civil society, as neither the Commission nor EU member states have granted access to the documents submitted by the applicants.

“EU law must not be weakened to benefit poorly regulated companies – something that is unfortunately common in the mining sector – while the administration abandons transparency, water and environmental regulations, aligning itself with the mining lobby,” said Pintos.

A Commission spokesperson told Climate Home the strategic minerals projects had been assessed by independent experts, who were asked to evaluate – among other criteria – whether they can be “implemented sustainably”.

Lack of “democratic accountability” threatens success

Experts are warning that limited transparency and local participation in selection of the EU’s strategic projects could have negative impacts on their implementation.

“There will be opposition because the European Union is taking these decisions in Brussels following an accelerated procedure for new projects. There has been no deep consultation and there is a lot of pressure to achieve these objectives,” said Marco Siddi, a researcher with the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

The absence of “democratic accountability” around these high-stakes mining projects could provoke a social reaction similar to that of the yellow vests, Siddi warned, referring to the unrest that erupted in France in 2018 after the government tried to hike fuel prices as a green measure.

Lithium tug of war: the US-China rivalry for Argentina’s white gold

The Commission spokesperson told Climate Home that each country’s authorities have the main responsibility for implementing these strategic projects, including carrying out consultations with local people “in accordance with national rules”.

Barrios, the researcher, said all opinions should be considered and environmental damage minimised, “but the last word has to be left to qualified personnel”.

The Extremadura government in Spain did not respond to a request for comment on whether and how communities had been consulted on the strategic project in Cañaveral.

Earlier Raquel Pastor, the region’s director general for industry, energy and mining, told Climate Home News that “projects of any kind that generate employment, wealth, and development in the region are welcomed, as long as they comply with all regulations, including environmental ones, of course, and with the law.”

Businesses aim to do no harm

The mining companies, for their part, have promised in most cases to minimise the impact of their operations on nature and contribute positively to rural development.

ENE’s CEO Ramón Jiménez Serrano told Climate Home that the Cáceres mine – which also plans to host a nearby processing plant – would only use treated wastewater and therefore would not impact local water supplies. Despite this, the company’s application for a permit with the local water authority was denied.

According to Steve Emerman, an independent geophysics and mining expert who has testified before the European Parliament on the issue, “there is no precedent for any modern, industrial mine that has been operated and closed without environmental contamination”.

On a cold and windy January afternoon, 150 kilometres north of Cáceres, 100 people from nearby villages – including the local priest – packed into the cultural centre in Ciudad Rodrigo, a town in the region of Salamanca, for a session on the impact of another proposed lithium mining project in the area.

Residents of the Rebollar region at the cultural centre of Ciudad Rodrigo in Salamanca attend an information meeting on lithium mining projects. (Photo: Bernardo Álvarez)

Residents of the Rebollar region at the cultural centre of Ciudad Rodrigo in Salamanca attend an information meeting on lithium mining projects. (Photo: Bernardo Álvarez)

This project, led by another Australian mining company, Energy Transitions Minerals, is still in its early stages, and is not on the EU’s list of strategic projects. But there is growing concern about how it could affect the region’s landscape and traditional jobs. According to the company, Salamanca is the European region with the highest concentration of critical raw materials, including lithium, copper and tantalum.

Increasingly, foreign-owned companies want to jump on Europe’s critical minerals bandwagon. Many are so-called junior mining companies that lack the financial and technical capacity to actually extract the materials from the ground, explained Emerman. “They just want to get the permit, then they will sell it to someone who can carry out the project,” he said.

Doubts over corporate sustainability plans

Locals fear this could be the case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, an EU candidate country where the lithium rush has reached the small northeastern town of Lopare. In 2023, the Swiss-owned junior mining company ARCORE AG announced it had struck “gold” in the densely forested area of rolling hills and rich lithium deposits, and is currently awaiting approval of a concession agreement from the Republika Srpska authorities, one of the country’s two governing units.

Environmental lawyer and activist Azra Berbić thinks it likely that another company with more resources and funding will purchase that agreement and carry out the lithium mining. ”We’ve seen this story before. This is why the local communities are so worried… they fear the agreement will be sold to a company like Rio Tinto,” she said.

A billboard in the center of Lopare, Bosnia and Herzegovina, made by local activist organizations, reads: ”Foreign profit as our downfall? Lithium and other metal mines are coming, along with catastrophic pollution. Time for collective resistance.” (Photo: Nejra Kravić)

A billboard in the center of Lopare, Bosnia and Herzegovina, made by local activist organizations, reads: ”Foreign profit as our downfall? Lithium and other metal mines are coming, along with catastrophic pollution. Time for collective resistance.” (Photo: Nejra Kravić)

So far the British-Australian conglomerate, one of the world’s largest mining companies, has shown no formal interest in Lopare. But Rio Tinto has faced a backlash over its environmental and labour practices around the world, including in neighbouring Serbia where its $2.4 billion investment in a proposed lithium mine in Jadar ignited mass protests in 2024.

Announcing that project in 2021, the company said it aimed to minimise the impact on communities by building the Jadar mine “to the highest environmental standards”, including dry stacking of tailings so they can be reclaimed without a dam and treating water so that 70% comes from recycled sources.

Human rights must be “at the core” of mining for transition minerals, UN panel says

In the case of Spain’s Cáceres, ENE has said it will use 100% renewable energy for its operations, although CEO Jiménez admitted that not all the above-ground machinery needed can yet run on electricity.

And in Salamanca, the regional government’s spokesman for energy transition minerals, Jorge Gil Mediavilla, told Climate Home that “although less money will be earned, the company has agreed to renounce open-cast mining in order to carry out small, highly concentrated underground mining operations”.

Yet, some experts are sceptical about the viability of the Salamanca project. “I doubt that it could be profitable,” said Antonio Areas, a veteran mining entrepreneur from the area, while geologist Antonio Aretxabala noted it would be the first underground lithium mine in the world.

Ángel Sánchez Corral, spokesman for local anti-mining platform El Rebollar Vivo in Salamanca, said many local communities remain unconvinced by the EU’s push for homegrown production of critical minerals and politicians’ promises of economic growth and jobs.

“The declaration of strategic projects by the EU is a step backwards in terms of environmental protection and social and territorial rights for the benefit of extractive and speculative companies – it makes us lose confidence in the EU institutions,” he said.

Reporting for this article was supported by the Magmatic School of Environmental Journalism.

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DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? 

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Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Absolute State of the Union

‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.

COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.

OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.

SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.

Around the world

  • RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
  • HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
  • BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
  • ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
  • COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
  • SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.

$467 billion

The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.


Latest climate research

  • Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
  • Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
  • Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.

Spotlight

Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?

This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.

Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.

Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.

Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:

“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”

Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.

Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:

“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”

Conservative gear shift

For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.

Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.

Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.

Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.

Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:

“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”

Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)

Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:

“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”

But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:

“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”

UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Global ‘greenlash’?

All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.

At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.

Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.

She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.

Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:

“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”

Watch, read, listen

TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.

RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.

Coming up

Pick of the jobs

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

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Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen

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Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.

The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.

In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.

“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.

The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.

US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’

The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.

Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.

The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.

This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.

The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.

    The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.

    “It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.

    Patchwork of levies

    While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.

    After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.

    If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.

    This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.

    Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.

    “With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.

    “It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”

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    Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn

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    Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.

    Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.

    Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.

    He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.

    What is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)?

    The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.

    Another case of diluted green rules?

    Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”. 

    The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.

    “You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.

    While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.

    EU and UK stand by SAF targets

    But the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.

    UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.

    “We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.

    UK aviation minister Keir Mather speaks at the SAF Investor conference in London on February 24, 2026. (Photo: SAF Investor)

    SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel. 

    Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.

    David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.

    “That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.

    Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.

    A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana

    A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana

    Asian countries join SAF mandate adopters

    In Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.

    David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.

    The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.

    Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?

    SAF and energy security

    SAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.

    Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.

    Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.

    Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.

    He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.

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