Everyone deserves access to power and every community should have homes that are climate resilient. 

The clean energy transition has the potential to be very beneficial for the Australian First Nations people on whose Country much of it will occur.

This paper documents results of interviews with legal and financial experts who have very particular insight into the contents of benefits agreements currently being negotiated with First Nations groups for large scale clean energy developments – agreements which are conventionally confidential.

The results of our analysis give reason for cautious optimism in this space, confirming that First Nations people in Australia have the legal ability to veto clean energy projects on Country.

We note the wider impacts of this emergent power of veto, which makes consent more valuable to developers, but also might encourage developers to avoid First Nations Country altogether.

We further observe that as First Nations groups become key stakeholders, or co-owners, in these kinds of development, they also can become exposed to significant financial risk.

The need to access excellent advice for First Nations groups in Australia who are navigating these projects – as developers, co-owners, shareholders, board members and contractors – is more urgent than ever.

Authors: Lily O'Neill, Kathryn Thorburn, First Nations at the forefront: The changing landscape of clean energy agreements in Australia, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 127, 2025

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As the world seeks to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel production and consumption to mitigate the impacts of climate change, communities that rely on coal, oil, and natural gas production as economic drivers are likely to face challenges.

Although extensive work has identified pathways towards a “just transition” in numerous contexts, very little has been written to understand the opportunities and challenges for fossil fuel-producing Native nations in a transition towards a net-zero emissions future.

In theory, Native American nations have control over the decisions that shape their energy futures because of their sovereign status. In practice, however, numerous factors limit the exercise of that sovereignty.

In this review, we assess the major barriers to tribal energy sovereignty, discuss historical and ongoing efforts to secure it, and highlight the tools that can further ensure the exercise of tribal energy sovereignty in the context of an energy transition. We also discuss recent policy developments and identify cases where Native nations are taking innovative approaches to govern the future of energy development on their lands.

Authors: Daniel Raimi, Alana Davicino, Securing energy sovereignty: A review of key barriers and opportunities for energy-producing Native nations in the United States, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 107, 2024

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Australia’s energy transition will require access to large areas of land, waters and seas, including for thousands of kilometres of new transmission lines, for storage and generation projects, and access to critical minerals.

Enabling and empowering First Nations to play a key and central role in Australia’s renewable energy transition goes beyond just social licence issues.

With new regulatory and policy systems being designed by governments across Australia to facilitate a rapid transition to renewable energy, access to and engagement with First Nations Country and Sea Country for renewable energy infrastructure will be essential and inevitable. The Jukaan Gorge tragedy has demonstrated to us all that these sorts of standards — whereby the law passively permits destruction, or leaves protection of cultural heritage and native title rights and interests to corporate social responsibility policies — as ineffective and wholly inappropriate.

Across the globe, First Nations are moving beyond minimal corporate social responsibility and tokenistic approaches to demand a new realism. In this new reality, First Nations are no longer just the passive hosts of projects or mere regulatory hurdles to clear. The finance sector too is increasingly engaging with this new realism, and the foundations on which the myth of terra nullius was established are rapidly eroding.

The two examples highlighted in this paper demonstrate recent Government failure to fully engage with this new reality. 

Stalled progress on projects attests to the growing urgency of including rights of free, prior and informed consent, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in legislation, and to design processes to fully include First Nations in the early planning, design, execution and management of projects. 

Despite the increasing recognition of the need for FPIC in an international context, our current legislative and policy systems that set the rules for engagement with First Nations do not contain this principle or standard — formed as they were either in an atmosphere of concocted hysteria following Mabo and Wik and the 10-point plan, or in a bygone era when First Nations’ proud culture and accompanying, rights, interests and responsibilities were conveniently made invisible and so rendered silent by the myth of terra nullius. 

If we perpetuate historical approaches to the development of projects that require access to land based on a dispossession that has always been unjust we will invite legal contestation and delay. Alternatively, by engaging with First Nations as partners in the design of systems, laws and policies, we will decrease uncertainty and project risk, resulting in a range of additional cultural, economic, environmental, social and political benefits to all parties. 

By including and embedding First Nations as partners in the energy system transition, and the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) in policy, legislative, project approval and financing systems and processes, we can ensure the transition is fair and just for First Nations, can occur at the pace necessary, will avoid unnecessary legal contestation, and will deliver ongoing mutual cultural, social, economic and environmental benefits to people and country.

If governments continue to perpetuate the fiction of terra nullius, Australia will miss opportunities for the development of a renewable energy sector that best ensures First Nations as active participants and supporters.

By Jonathan Kneebone, First Nations Clean Energy Network

This is an excerpt from the paper, which can be found in the Australian Environment Review.

Thanks to Izzy Gibson for the image!