The Economic Perspective 24 October 2025

The Latest Trending Economic News Curated for You by Balmoral Group Australia

"With old age is wisdom, and with length of days understanding"

Good morning dear readers, and welcome to this week's edition

This week, we celebrate a truly remarkable milestone!  The 107th birthday of Paul Mwazha, a legendary icon and role model to many, who turns 107 tomorrow, 25 October. Born in 1918 and named Mamvura — “child of waters” — he stands today as one of the few living supercentenarians, embodying a century of wisdom, resilience, and faith. His life is a rare celebration of longevity and legacy, inspiring generations through his enduring strength and spiritual leadership. Happy birthday, Child of Waters!

Speaking of water, this week (22–26 October) marks National Water Week in Australia —an annual event dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of water and inspiring action to protect this vital resource. The week encourages communities, organisations, and individuals to use water wisely and address the growing challenges of climate change.

Fittingly, our articles this week centre on climate and sustainability. The first article introduces the Carbon Measures initiative, a global effort to standardise carbon accounting and improve emissions accuracy. The second discusses U.S. pressure on allies to secure long-term fossil fuel deals, a move criticised for hindering renewable progress. The third showcases Australian scientists’ floating wetlands, an innovative and cost-effective way to filter water pollutants. Lastly, Snowy 2.0 emerges as a transformative hydro project set to deliver massive clean-energy storage for generations to come.

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Hope you enjoy the articles and have a great weekend!

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Global Companies Launch Carbon Measures to Create Standard Framework for Carbon Accounting 

A global coalition of companies across finance, energy and industry has launched the “Carbon Measures” initiative to design a globally applicable ledger-based carbon accounting system. The initiative aims to ameliorate fragmented reporting mechanisms by addressing accuracy, double counting, and defining standards for electricity, fuel, steel, concrete, and chemicals, products composing the backbone of global supply chains and accounting for most industrial emissions. Read more here.

Trump is pushing allies to buy US gas 

The US is leveraging trade and defense partnerships to pressure allies in Europe and Asia to buy US fossil fuels. The US exports 22% of global oil and 25% of liquified natural gas (LNG), and aims to lock in long-term trade contracts to protect its industry from competition with low-cost renewables, with new fossil-power plant projects only being viable if intended for long-term use. These contracts would also maintain US energy dominance as political-economic leverage, and undermine China, who currently leads the renewable tech sector. Australia needs to reject the US pro-gas agenda and accelerate the green shift. Read more here.   

Deep in the reeds: Australian scientists put dollar figure on floating wetlands’ global water quality savings 

Artificial floating wetlands are constructed from buoyant plastic pods planted with fast-growing reeds, and can improve water quality in wastewater systems. Aquatic plants naturally filter out pollutants as they pass through biofilms associated with the plant root-systems. A new study into the economics of 11 of these floating wetlands found the method to be cost-effective, and the cost per kg to remove nutrients is lower for larger wetland constructions. Read more here.

White elephant? Hardly – Snowy 2.0 will last 150 years and work with batteries to push out gas 

Snowy 2.0 is expected to come online around 2028, and will provide 350 gigawatt-hours of energy, 5 times more storage than all other pumped hydro and grid batteries combined. When energy is cheap, it pumps water uphill to a top reservoir, and when energy is expensive the water drains back down through the hydro station to produce cheap electricity. This article details the interrelationships between patterns of energy consumption and storage, which fluctuate with the time of day, energy prices, storage capacity, landscape constraints, and renewable-fossil tradeoffs. For example, Snowy 2.0 may replace coal for overnight generation, and also assist in recharging grid batteries when sun and wind are scarce. See left for a representation of the share of energy production over time, and read more here.

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Seamap Australia

This map was produced by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) in collaboration with the University of Tasmania. It visualises the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, showing marine pressures are most strongly contributing to extreme weather along the northwest and southern coasts.

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