Planet Earth will spin a little faster on three separate days this summer, starting on July 9. This will technically result in shorter days, but the change will be so minuscule you won’t even notice.
Several milliseconds will be shaved off of the 24 hours it takes for Earth to complete a full rotation — we’re talking even less time than the blink of an eye.
Why is Earth’s rotation speed changing?
Planet Earth is our timekeeper, but it’s not perfect.
It takes our planet 24 hours — one day — to complete one full rotation on its axis, which breaks down to 86,400 seconds. But Earth’s rotation could change by a millisecond (.001 seconds) or two every day.
The orbit of the moon can have an effect on how fast the Earth spins around. “Our planet spins quicker when the moon’s position is far to the north or south of Earth’s equator,” according to TimeandDate.com.
“Earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal forces, subterranean geology, and many other mechanisms can cause the planet’s rotation to slow down or speed up, and those micro-adjustments can trend over time,” Popular Mechanics reported.
The 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 accelerated Earth’s rotation, shortening the length of the standard 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds (0.0018 milliseconds).
These tiny day-to-day fluctuations in the Earth’s spin speed began to be measured in the 1950s with atomic clocks. Any number above or below the standard 86,400 seconds is called the length of day (LOD).
The shortest day recorded was on July 5, 2024, when Earth completed its full rotation 1.66 milliseconds faster than the standard 86,400 seconds.
When will this happen?
There are three days this summer when the moon will be around its furthest distance from Earth’s equator, resulting in a minuscule increase in the Earth’s spin speed. The following are predictions from scientists:
July 9: The day is shortened by 1.30 milliseconds
July 22: Earth loses 1.38 milliseconds of the day
Aug. 5: The day is shortened by 1.51 milliseconds
Wait — isn’t there another day that’s considered the shortest of the year?
What feels like the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere is known as the winter solstice, when Earth is tilted away from the sun at its maximum. This results in the fewest amount of daylight hours all year and occurs in mid-December.
Will Earth always have 24 hours in a day?
There weren’t always 24 hours in a day. Researchers believe that in the Jurassic Period, it took Earth just 23 hours to make a complete rotation around its axis. Scientists have found that the length of a day on Earth is increasing each century by about 1.7 milliseconds. Over time, that adds up. Experts think that 200 million years from now, there will be 25 hours in a full day.
Pakistan prequalifies four investors for PIA, greenlights Roosevelt Hotel joint venture deal
KARACHI: Pakistan has prequalified four investors for the sale of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), while its Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) has approved the transaction structure for the denationalization of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York under a joint venture, the ministry of privatization said on Tuesday.
Pakistan has been seeking to sell a 51-100 percent stake in the struggling national airline to raise funds and reform cash-draining, state-owned enterprises as envisaged under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund program. It would be the country’s first major privatization in nearly two decades.
Among the bidding groups, one is a consortium of major industrial firms Lucky Cement, Hub Power Holdings, Kohat Cement and Metro Ventures. Another is led by investment firm Arif Habib Corp. and includes fertilizer producer Fatima Fertilizer, private education operator The City School, and real estate firm Lake City Holdings. Additionally, Fauji Fertilizer Company, a military-backed conglomerate, and Pakistani airline Airblue, have been approved to bid for PIA.
“The prequalified parties will now proceed to the buy-side due diligence phase — a critical next step in the transparent and competitive privatization process of PIACL,” the privatization commission’s statement said.
PIA, once a respected carrier in Asia, has been propped up by taxpayers for decades due to political interference, corruption and inefficiencies. The airline’s privatization has repeatedly collapsed amid union resistance, legal hurdles and low investor appetite.
Pakistani state-owned enterprises post annual losses of more than Rs800 billion ($2.87 billion), and when subsidies, grants and other support are included, the burden swells beyond Rs1 trillion ($3.59 billion), Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told parliament while presenting the budget for fiscal year 2025–26 earlier this month.
PIA has been one of the government’s most costly liabilities, which has accumulated over $2.5 billion in losses in roughly a decade and been surviving on repeated bailouts that have weighed heavily on Pakistan’s strained budget.
Last month, five consortiums submitted expressions of interest for a 51–100 percent stake in PIA after the government restructured its balance sheet to make the deal more attractive. It also scrapped the sales tax on leased aircraft and is providing limited protection from legal and tax claims. Around 80 percent of the airline’s debt has been transferred to the state.
ROOSEVELT HOTEL
Separately, the CCOP approved the transaction structure for Roosevelt Hotel under a “Joint Venture model with multiple options.”
“This option is aimed at maximizing long-term value for the country, while ensuring flexibility, multiple exit opportunities, and minimizing future fiscal exposure,” the privatization commission said.
How much money the hotel ultimately brings in, and its overall valuation, depends on the type of transaction structure adopted, Privatization Commission Chairman Muhammad Ali told Arab News in an interview last month. If the government formed a joint venture with a private investor, sharing both the risks and future profits, the hotel could be worth four to five times more than its as-is valuation, he said at the time.
“So, depending on what sort of structure you have, how much risk you take, how much effort the government puts in, we can make a lot of money from this asset,” the privatization chief had said.
The Roosevelt, a 1,015-room historic hotel in Midtown Manhattan, has long been one of Pakistan’s most prominent but politically sensitive overseas assets. Acquired by Pakistan International Airlines Investment Limited (PIAIL) in 1979, the hotel occupies a full city block on Madison Avenue and 45th Street. Over the past two decades, successive Pakistani governments have floated plans to sell, lease, or redevelop the property, but no proposal has advanced beyond early-stage planning.
Operations at the Roosevelt were suspended in 2020 following steep financial losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, Pakistan entered a short-term lease with the City of New York to use the property as a temporary shelter for asylum seekers, generating more than $220 million in projected rental income. That agreement ended in 2024 and no new revenue stream has since been announced.
The Roosevelt Hotel is one of several state assets the government hopes will contribute to its target of raising Rs86 billion ($306 million) in privatization proceeds during the fiscal year starting July 1, alongside the sale of PIA and three electricity distribution companies.
Gut dysbiosis has been reported in severe liver diseases. However, information on the impact of hepatitis E virus infection on the gut microbiota, and the association between enteric microbiota disturbances and acute hepatitis E (AHE), is limited, particularly in elderly patients with AHE (AHE-elderly). Our objective was to characterize the AHE-specific microbiome in elderly patients and evaluate its association with clinical outcomes.
Methods
Fecal samples and clinical data were collected from 58 AHE-elderly patients (46 self-healing cases, 12 non-self-healing cases) and 30 elderly patients with healthy controls (hereinafter referred to as HCs-elderly). Gut microbiota composition was analyzed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Bioinformatic analyses, including alpha diversity and STAMP, were performed. The predictive potential of Bacteroides fragilis was assessed using statistical analysis and receiver operating characteristic curves.
Results
Alpha diversity indices showed no significant differences in microbial diversity between the AHE-elderly and HCs-elderly groups, nor between self-healing and non-self-healing groups among AHE-elderly patients. Nevertheless, a trend toward altered species richness was observed. In the AHE-elderly group, the relative abundance of Firmicutes, Lactobacillales, and Bacilli increased significantly. Meanwhile, compared with the self-healing group, Bacteroidetes were more abundant in the non-self-healing group. At the species level, Bacteroides fragilis was the most abundant in the non-self-healing group, significantly contributing to the divergence in gut microbiota between the two groups.
Conclusions
Our study reveals significant differences in the gut microbiota composition between elderly patients with AHE and healthy controls. The relative abundances of Bacteroidetes, Lactobacillales, and Bacilli can effectively distinguish AHE patients from HC individuals. Furthermore, the abundance of Bacteroides can differentiate self-healing cases from non-self-healing cases among elderly AHE patients. This study identifies Bacteroides fragilis as a potential biomarker for disease outcomes. Future studies should explore the causal relationships between gut microbiota and HEV infection in larger, longitudinal cohorts.
Source:
Journal reference:
Li, M., et al. (2025). The Gut Microbiota in Elderly Patients with Acute Hepatitis E Infection. Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology. doi.org/10.14218/jcth.2025.00111.
LONDON — A malfunction with Wimbledon ‘s new electronic line-calling system required a point to be replayed during a quarterfinal match between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov on Tuesday.
The issue occurred during the opening game of the fourth set on Court No. 1 after Fritz had served at 15-0 and the players exchanged shots. Then came a “fault” call.
Chair umpire Louise Azemar-Engzell stopped play and a few moments later ordered the players to “replay the last point due to a malfunction.”
The system had tracked Fritz’s shot in the rally as if it was a serve, the All England Club said.
“The player’s service motion began while the (ball boy/ball girl) was still crossing the net and therefore the system didn’t recognize the start of the point. As such the chair umpire instructed the point be replayed,” the club said in a statement.
Khachanov won the replayed point but the fifth-seeded Fritz advanced to the semifinals with a 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4) victory.
I connect most with people who share values of acceptance, and I gravitate towards those people, and I probably will blindside people who don’t.
Who is on that blindside list?
I’m gonna win the game. And if your value systems don’t jive with mine, we’re not gonna connect, we’re not gonna bond. I’m not gonna be able to trust you, and so I’m gonna have to blindside you, or get you out somehow, but it’s most likely gonna be a blindside.
Did this come up at all in Australia?
It comes up every single time. Yeah, in every game. This is how I connect with people, it’s through sharing stories. Being curious about other people, asking questions, and then looking for places where the things that we care about connect.
You don’t have to tell me who, but I would be OK if you did—what are some of the most egregious non-connection moments you’ve experienced on the island, political or otherwise?
Well, I don’t know JT’s politics or Rupert [Boneham]’s, or, any of those guys on Heroes vs. Villains for that matter, like Colby [Donaldson], but I don’t think that we share the same politics, and we very clearly did not connect. And you saw how that turned out for those guys. [Laughs.]
OK, the Black Widow is still here. I think she’s in the room with us right now. I’m sorry to say.
I’m telling you, I’m a whole person.
You’re a holistic person.
I know, but inside of a game, it’s a bubble, and inside of that container, who are your people, who’s your tribe, and who’s not? I have a very high tolerance for people and their differences, and I just think do you, as long as you’re not hurting someone else or taking away someone else’s right to be a person. But if you’re going to come after someone’s right to exist as themselves? No, that doesn’t work for me.
When people are on the beach, and they’re at the basest version of themselves, I’ve always wondered what comes out after that.
Yeah. I mean, I think the most divisive for me was the Micronesia finale and the Heroes vs. Villains finale. That’s where you see the politics play out. That’s where the voting happens for the winner. I think you saw where people stood in those moments. And that’s not to say that people can’t change once they get more information, because some of them did apologize afterward. But, you know, some of them didn’t, too.
Survivor is a very political game. I’ve talked with Jon Lovett on his podcast about this too. I think there’s a reason why people who are into politics love Survivor.
My entire life is explained now!
You’re welcome. I validate you.
For my last question, I want to get back to you as this professional reality TV star, content creator, and author. You are continuing and continuing to put yourself out into the world, even though you’ve been burnt by that so many times. Why did you decide that you were going to keep pushing?
I think it’s because I am a Scorpio moon. I don’t know! I just have this deep hunger to feel. And I’m super curious and adventurous. And I really like putting myself into extreme environments where I have very little control, and seeing what happens and how I adapt, and pushing myself to be resilient. And I think that that is what keeps me growing and young. I want to grow, I want to learn, I want to develop. I want to get better and better and enjoy all there is to enjoy. And I even enjoy suffering. And pain is enjoyable to me, alongside joy and ecstasy and all pleasure. All of it is kind of enjoyable.
So like I wrote about in my book, this is my kink, like Survivor reality TV competition shows, putting myself out there, exposing myself in a way that supports people’s development and growth and people’s acceptance of themselves. That’s what my life is about. So I’m gonna keep doing it, even if it seems insane.
Seven of the eight finalists from the men’s 800m at the Paris Olympic Games will clash again at the Herculis EBS Meeting, providing what looks set to be one of the highlights of the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco on Friday (11).
It’s one of eight disciplines in Monaco in which the Olympic champion is set to compete. The men’s 200m, meanwhile, boasts two Olympic gold medallists in the form of Noah Lyles and Letsile Tebogo.
Olympic 800m champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi heads to Monaco off the back of two wins on the Diamond League circuit, topped by his world-leading 1:41.95 run in Stockholm last month – the fifth sub-1:42 clocking of his career. But this Friday’s race could be the toughest test of his season so far as he takes on the two men who joined him on the Paris podium last year: Canada’s Marco Arop and Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati.
Arop, the world champion, is undefeated over 800m this year, but he hasn’t contested any Diamond League races so far this season. Sedjati, the winner in Monaco last year in a meeting record of 1:41.46, finished second to Wanyonyi in Stockholm last month, clocking a season’s best of 1:42.27, his fastest time since the Olympic final.
The field also includes two other men who broke 1:42 last year: France’s Gabriel Tual and USA’s Bryce Hoppel. The addition of world indoor champion Josh Hoey and Algeria’s Slimane Moula means there’ll be eight men with sub-1:43 PBs on the start line.
World and Olympic gold medallist Noah Lyles will make his highly anticipated Diamond League debut. The 27-year-old opened his outdoor season in April with a low-key appearance over 400m (45.87) but was forced to delay the start of his international campaign due to some ankle troubles.
He won’t have it easy, though, as he’ll be up against the man who beat him to the Olympic 200m title last year: Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo. The 22-year-old, who clocked a world-leading 19.76 in Eugene last weekend, will be looking for a repeat performance of last year’s Monaco victory in a race that also features Alexander Ogando and Jereem Richards.
The Olympic podium will be reunited in the men’s pole vault with world record-holder Mondo Duplantis taking on Sam Kendricks and Emmanouil Karalis – three of the seven men in the field with PBs higher than six metres. Duplantis has been beaten in two of his three Monaco appearances to date, and Monaco remains one of just three Diamond League meetings in which the Swede doesn’t hold the meeting record.
The world champion will no doubt have his eye on Piotr Lisek’s meeting record of 6.02m, and if the conditions are good, he could even look to improve on the 6.28m world record he set in Stockholm last month.
Numerous global champions will clash in the other two field events. Following a high-standard competition in Eugene last week, two-time world champion Chase Jackson renews her rivalry with world indoor champion Sarah Mitton, Olympic champion Yemisi Ogunleye and European champion Jessica Schilder.
In the men’s high jump, Olympic champion Hamish Kerr takes on world indoor champion Woo Sanghyeok, Olympic silver medallist Shelby McEwen and world leader Jan Stefela of Czechia.
Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred will be looking for a second successive Herculis victory after winning in Monaco last year with 10.85. The St Lucian has a best this year of 10.75, though her 10.77 clocking into a -1.5m/s headwind in Eugene last weekend suggests she’s capable of going much faster. She’ll face Jamaican twins Tia and Tina Clayton as well as USA’s Jacious Sears, who ran 10.85 last weekend.
World and Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino, competing in Monaco for the first time, headlines a women’s 400m field that includes Olympic bronze medallist Natalia Bukowiecka, NCAA champion Aaliyah Butler, Diamond League record-holder Nickisha Pryce and Chile’s Martina Weil.
In the women’s 100m hurdles, Olympic champion Masai Russell takes on Grace Stark – winner at the Paris Diamond League last month in 12.21 – and 2021 Olympic bronze medallist Megan Tapper.
World champion Femke Bol takes on former world record-holder Dalilah Muhammad, Olympic silver medallist Anna Cockrell and Jamaica’s Andrenette Knight in the women’s 400m hurdles.
Elsewhere on the track, the four fastest men in the world this year clash in the 110m hurdles: US quartet Cordell Tinch, Trey Cunningham, Dylan Beard and Ja’Kobe Tharp.
Winners of three recent Diamond League races will clash in a high-quality men’s 5000m, racing on the track where the current world record was set. Sweden’s Andreas Almgren, winner of the 5000m in Stockholm in a European record of 12:44.27, takes on Paris Diamond League winner Yomif Kejelcha and Eugene 10,000m winner Biniam Mehary in a field where eight men have PBs faster than 12:50.
Elsewhere, Kenneth Rooks and Abraham Kibiwot, the Olympic silver and bronze medallists respectively, lead a men’s 3000m steeplechase field that also includes in-form German Frederik Ruppert, Xiamen Diamond League winner Samuel Firewu and Kenyan duo Simon Koech and Edmund Serem.
If we are located in a region with below-average density such as the green dot, then matter would flow away from us due to stronger gravity from the surrounding denser regions, as shown by the red arrows.
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Credit: Moritz Haslbauer and Zarija Lukic
Earth and our entire Milky Way galaxy may sit inside a mysterious giant hole which makes the cosmos expand faster here than in neighbouring regions of the universe, astronomers say.
Their theory is a potential solution to the ‘Hubble tension’ and could help confirm the true age of our universe, which is estimated to be around 13.8 billion years old.
The latest research – shared at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) in Durham – shows that sound waves from the early universe, “essentially the sound of the Big Bang”, support this idea.
The Hubble constant was first proposed by Edwin Hubble in 1929 to express the rate of the universe’s expansion. It can be measured by observing the distance of celestial objects and how fast they are moving away from us.
The stumbling block, however, is that extrapolating measurements of the distant, early universe to today using the standard cosmological model predicts a slower rate of expansion than measurements of the nearby, more recent universe. This is the Hubble tension.
“A potential solution to this inconsistency is that our galaxy is close to the centre of a large, local void,” explained Dr Indranil Banik, of the University of Portsmouth.
“It would cause matter to be pulled by gravity towards the higher density exterior of the void, leading to the void becoming emptier with time.
“As the void is emptying out, the velocity of objects away from us would be larger than if the void were not there. This therefore gives the appearance of a faster local expansion rate.”
He added: “The Hubble tension is largely a local phenomenon, with little evidence that the expansion rate disagrees with expectations in the standard cosmology further back in time.
“So a local solution like a local void is a promising way to go about solving the problem.”
For the idea to stand up, Earth and our solar system would need to be near the centre of a void about a billion light-years in radius and with a density about 20 per cent below the average for the universe as a whole.
Directly counting galaxies does support the theory, because the number density in our local universe is lower than in neighbouring regions.
However, the existence of such a large and deep void is controversial because it doesn’t mesh particularly well with the standard model of cosmology, which suggests matter today should be more uniformly spread out on such large scales.
Despite this, new data presented by Dr Banik at NAM 2025 shows that baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) – the “sound of the Big Bang” – support the idea of a local void.
“These sound waves travelled for only a short while before becoming frozen in place once the universe cooled enough for neutral atoms to form,” he explained.
“They act as a standard ruler, whose angular size we can use to chart the cosmic expansion history.
“A local void slightly distorts the relation between the BAO angular scale and the redshift, because the velocities induced by a local void and its gravitational effect slightly increase the redshift on top of that due to cosmic expansion.
“By considering all available BAO measurements over the last 20 years, we showed that a void model is about one hundred million times more likely than a void-free model with parameters designed to fit the CMB observations taken by the Planck satellite, the so-called homogeneous Planck cosmology.”
The next step for researchers is to compare their local void model with other methods to estimate the history of the universe’s expansion, such as cosmic chronometers.
This involves looking at galaxies that are no longer forming stars. By observing their spectra, or light, it is possible to find what kinds of stars they have and in what proportion. Since more massive stars have shorter lives, they are absent in older galaxies, providing a way to establish a galaxy’s age.
Astronomers can then combine this age with the galaxy’s redshift – how much the wavelength of its light has been stretched – which tells us how much the universe has expanded while light from the galaxy was travelling towards us. This sheds light on the universe’s expansion history.
ENDS
Media contacts
Sam Tonkin
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 700
press@ras.ac.uk
Dr Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 699
press@ras.ac.uk
Megan Eaves
Royal Astronomical Society
press@ras.ac.uk
Science contacts
Dr Indranil Banik
University of Portsmouth
indranilbanik1992@gmail.com
Images & captions
Inside a void
Caption: If we are located in a region with below-average density such as the green dot, then matter would flow away from us due to stronger gravity from the surrounding denser regions, as shown by the red arrows.
Credit: Moritz Haslbauer and Zarija Lukic
Baryon acoustic oscillations
Caption: Baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) – the “sound of the Big Bang” – support the idea of a local void.
Credit: Gabriela Secara, Perimeter Institute
Cosmic expansion
Caption: The main techniques for charting the cosmic expansion history, such as supernovae – or standard candles – and cosmic chronometers.
Credit: Dr Indranil Banik
Further information
The talk ‘Theoretical and observational approaches to the Hubble tension’ will take place at NAM at 14:15 BST on Wednesday 9 July 2025 in room OCW017. Find out more at: https://conference.astro.dur.ac.uk/event/7/sessions/90/#20250709
If you would like a Zoom link and password to watch it online, please email press@ras.ac.uk
The Hubble constant was first proposed by Edwin Hubble in 1929 to express the rate of the universe’s expansion. It can be measured by observing the distance of celestial objects and how fast they are moving away from us.
The Hubble tension refers to the discrepancy in the measured expansion rate of the universe, specifically between the value based on observations of the early universe and value related to observations of the local universe.
Baryon acoustic oscillations are a pattern of wrinkles in the density distribution of the clusters of galaxies spread across the universe. They provide an independent way to measure the expansion rate of the universe and how that rate has changed throughout cosmic history.
Notes for editors
The NAM 2025 conference is principally sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society and Durham University.
About the Royal Astronomical Society
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science.
The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4,000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.
The RAS accepts papers for its journals based on the principle of peer review, in which fellow experts on the editorial boards accept the paper as worth considering. The Society issues press releases based on a similar principle, but the organisations and scientists concerned have overall responsibility for their content.
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About the Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is the UK’s largest public funder of research into astronomy and astrophysics, particle and nuclear physics, and space science. We operate five national laboratories across the UK which, supported by a network of additional research facilities, increase our understanding of the world around us and develop innovative technologies in response to pressing scientific and societal issues. We also facilitate UK involvement in a number of international research activities including the ELT, CERN, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Square Kilometre Array Observatory.
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About Durham University
Durham University is a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research based in historic Durham City in the UK.
We are a collegiate university committed to inspiring our people to do outstanding things at Durham and in the world.
We conduct research that improves lives globally and we are ranked as a world top 100 university with an international reputation in research and education (QS World University Rankings 2026).
We are a member of the Russell Group of leading research-intensive UK universities and we are consistently ranked as a top five university in national league tables (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide and The Complete University Guide).
For more information about Durham University visit: www.durham.ac.uk/about/
As global supply chains pivot towards low-emissions production, Australia will need to lead, or risk being left behind. The country’s challenge is not a lack of technology, capital, or ambition. It’s a gap in policy architecture. Without bankable demand, Australia’s most promising clean commodity projects – green iron, sustainable aviation fuel, and clean ammonia – remain stuck at the starting line.
To meet that challenge, we propose a new demand-side policy model: the Clean Commodities Trading Initiative (CCTI) – a flagship example of green energy statecraft. At its heart is a new tool for national transformation: Clean Commodity Credits that reward innovation and emissions savings.
A market-friendly mechanism to kickstart large-scale clean production.
Green energy statecraft is a strategic approach to governance that uses the clean energy transition to simultaneously advance a nation’s economic, environmental, social, and geostrategic goals. Unlike conventional industry policy, which focuses on domestic market corrections, statecraft treats clean energy as key to national security and prosperity – used to build alliances, secure supply chains, boost productivity, and shape global rules.
The European Union, China, Japan, and South Korea are all pursuing variations of green energy statecraft. Australia must do the same – on its own terms, with tools suited to its advantages, institutions, and budget.
The CCTI is the tool for our times.
The CCTI is a market-friendly mechanism to kickstart large-scale clean production. Its core function is simple: government acts as an early buyer of clean commodities – not to stockpile goods, but to create the conditions for investment. Clean production projects face long lead times and high capital costs. But their biggest barrier is price uncertainty. Firms can’t justify investment if they don’t know whether the market will pay a green premium to offset higher costs. The CCTI removes that uncertainty. It contracts with producers to buy a baseline volume at agreed floor prices. These offtake agreements give developers and financiers the confidence to proceed.
Without bankable demand, Australia’s most promising clean commodity projects – such as sustainable aviation fuel – will remain stuck at the starting line (David Syphers/Unsplash)
But the real innovation lies in what happens next.
Upon purchasing clean commodities such as green iron, the CCTI would decouple the physical products from their clean attributes by creating Clean Commodity Credits, or Innovation Credits, since the clean attributes reflect not just lower emissions but innovation in production. This dual-market approach allows the physical commodities to be sold in conventional markets while the credits are banked or traded later.
A clean commodity contains two price components: the base cost of the commodity; and the cost of producing it with low emissions. This second factor – the “green premium” – raises prices above conventional alternatives. Clean Commodity Credits solve that problem. They let clean commodities enter traditional markets without the higher price tag. Meanwhile, the CCTI can offset its support costs by monetising the credits in flexible ways. As we argue in our new paper, it could:
Bank credits for future sale as regulatory markets mature
Sell credits into voluntary markets to recover costs
Create bundled products combining physical commodities with clean attributes
This flexibility allows the CCTI to adapt as markets evolve, maximising taxpayer value while supporting market development.
In effect, these credits create bankable demand for green innovation. They send a clear price signal – not just for carbon, but for the kinds of technologies, processes, and business models that will define the clean economy. They give governments a strategic mechanism to stimulate private investment and build advantage in future-facing sectors.
If Australia continues to rely on patchwork subsidies and fragmented supply-side measures, it will fall behind.
Traditional carbon markets, while important, work by penalising emissions. But in heavy industry, where low-carbon alternatives are still emerging, penalties alone often aren’t enough to drive change. Establishing a market for these credits flips the model. Instead of punishing laggards, it rewards leaders. Governments can set clean production targets – say, 30 per cent green steel by 2030 – and let firms meet them by innovating or buying credits from early movers. It creates a race to the top, not just a drag on the bottom line.
This model rewards firms that act now with firm demand at a price that justifies production – not in 2030 when carbon prices bite or regulation finally arrives. And it allows government to recover its support as credit markets develop. Once established, the same principle can apply to any product the government deems strategic, regardless of its carbon value. Thus Innovation Credits may be the better name.
Japan and South Korea, two of Australia’s key trading partners, seek long-term access to clean industrial inputs they cannot produce domestically. Australia, with its renewable energy resources and export capacity, is a natural partner. By embedding Clean Commodity or Innovation Credits into trade relationships – through joint offtake agreements, shared credit markets, or co-investment in CCTI-backed facilities – Australia can deepen economic ties and build geopolitical resilience. This is green energy statecraft in action: aligning clean industry development with alliance-building and regional stability.
The energy transition is a global race. Other countries are moving decisively. If Australia continues to rely on patchwork subsidies and fragmented supply-side measures, it will fall behind. The CCTI offers a smarter, faster, and more strategic path forward. It reflects the kind of governance Australia now needs: bold, integrated, efficient, and effective.
Green energy statecraft isn’t just theory. It’s practice. And with the right tools, Australia can lead.
This article relates to a Studies in Statecraft series from the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D).
