The clean energy industry has warned that Australia could fall further behind other nations after a report showed the country is ranked ninth in the world for investment in renewables.



Research by the Frankfurt school, Bloomberg and the UN environment program found in 2013 that Australia made $US4.4bn in new investment in renewable energy, such as solar, wind and geothermal, a 0.1% decrease on the previous year.

This places Australia ninth in the world, ahead of Italy, but behind the likes of South Africa, Canada, India and Germany. China, which invested $US54.2bn last year, topped the list, followed by the US on $US33.9bn.

Renewables, excluding large hydro projects, accounted for nearly 44% of the world’s newly installed energy generation in 2013, saving the planet 1.2 gigatonnes of carbon emissions. Total investment fell 14% to $US214.4bn, which the report partially attributes to the falling cost of solar energy systems.

Australia’s renewables take-up has been led by domestic solar use, with more than 1m rooftop solar systems installed.

The federal government is undertaking a review of the renewable energy target (RET), which mandates that 20% of Australia’s electricity must be sourced from renewables by 2020.

The review is headed by a former Reserve Bank board member, Dick Warburton, who has previously said he is sceptical of the science of climate change.

Senior Coalition figures are understood to be keen to scrap or drastically wind back the RET, saying it drives up energy costs. The Australian Energy Market Commission found the RET was responsible for about 4% of the average household power bill in 2013-14, dropping to a likely 3.1% in 2014-15.

Kane Thornton, the deputy chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, said uncertainty over the future of the RET was hindering investment in renewables.

“The RET review is causing a lot of uncertainty, there is definitely a slowing down in the industry,” he told Guardian Australia.

“If we removed the RET, it would increase our exposure to gas, and gas prices are going up. This will lead to higher energy prices, impacting jobs and investment. It’s easy to ask for the RET to be shut down but people don’t realise the impact of that.

“Over 100 countries have a target to expand renewables, so if we reduce our target, we’d slip very quickly out of the top 10.

“There is some possibility of that happening with the RET review. But I’m confident that when people look at the evidence, they’ll see that there are a lot of benefits for a small cost.”

Thornton said Australia was already being left behind by countries such as Germany and Japan, even though these countries don’t have the same exposure to sunlight or wind.

“In my mind, we could certainly do a lot more,” he said. “Countries around the world are pushing harder than us, even though we have world-leading resources when it comes to sun and wind.

“There are regular delegations from Europe and Japan, who are already ahead of us in the top 10, and they say they could do even more, at less cost, if they had the same resources as Australia.”