Rapid growth in renewable energy investment has propelled the sector to a "tipping point," former NSW premier Mike Baird says, amid predictions investors will pour trillions of dollars globally into green electricity projects in the coming decades.
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| Mike Baird, former NSW premier and NAB's chief customer officer for corporate and institutional banking, says green energy is a "huge" opportunity for the bank. |
Amid a bitter political fight over energy policy in Australia, Mr Baird, now a senior National Australia Bank executive, said global market forces were already driving long-term changes in the energy mix.
After NAB last year became the first major Australian bank to stop lending for new thermal coal mines, Mr Baird said the lender's balance sheet also reflected the "exponential" growth in renewable energy financing, which he viewed as a "huge opportunity”.
“We’re in a position that there are many moving parts to the energy policy discussion framework, but we’ve reached a critical point where the markets and investors are moving in respect of these challenges,” Mr Baird said in an interview with Fairfax Media.
