Home/Posts Tagged ‘subsidies’
Posts Tagged ‘subsidies’
Politics, Nov 29th, 2011,
The UK is bracing itself for the largest public sector strike in over 30 years, prompted by the frozen and cut wages of state employees. The Conservatives sell these cuts as ‘necessary austerities’, but many aren’t buying that. And in light of a constant rise in income inequality and unfair EU subsides towards the wealthy, it’s not hard to see why. Case in point: George Monbiot writes in the Guardian on the outrageous Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies, which take up 43% of the European budget (totalling £47bn per year). And the more land you own, the more money you…
Tags: Dominic, elite, European, farm, George, Lawson, Monbiot, nurses, private sector, public sector, strike, subsidies, teachers, UK, workers
Politics, Sep 16th, 2010,
On Tuesday Italian police seized Mafia-linked assets worth an unprecedented €1.5 billion from a Sicilian businessman known as the ‘Lord of the Winds’. The seizure of holdings from 43 mainly renewable energy companies included land, sports cars and bank accounts. It signifies a shift in operations for Italy’s mafia; from the illegal dumping of toxic waste to the laundering of money through solar and wind power projects. According to members of the Italian press, this transition has been going on for years. From a France 24 report: Throughout Italy, organised crime has invested heavily in renewable energies and in waste…
Tags: crime, energy, Italian, Italy, mafia, organized, power, renewable, Sicilian, Solar, subsidies, wind
Politics, Aug 11th, 2010,
The government of Spain’s electric vehicle scheme has so far failed to take off. Spain’s plans to fill its roads with electric cars, which can top up at service stations and converted phone booths across the country, have hit a bump in the road. So far only 16 electric cars have been sold in Spain this year. This is a 16-fold improvement over last year, but far short of the goal of 2,000 for this year and seems destined to fail to meet next year’s 20,000 or 2014’s 100,000 targets. Yet the Spanish government-backed Wind Power and Electric Vehicles group…
Tags: cars, electric, energy, finance, fossil fuel, power, renewables, Spain, Spanish, subsidies, vehicles, wind, Zapatero
Climate Change, Politics, Pollution, Jul 23rd, 2010,
Europe’s loss-making hard coal mines will be forced to close due to a new tightening of regulations regarding government subsidies. Coal mines deemed uncompetitive will have their subsides diverted from production costs to social and environmental aid for their respective areas. This has been the trend for hard coal mines during the last decade, when overall aid fell by more than 50%. From an article in the Financial Times: New European Union rules that come into force from January will only allow government operating aid to be provided to hard coal mines if closure plans are in place. Those plans…
Tags: aid, coal, EU, Europe, Germany, government, loss-making, mines, Ruhr, subsidies
Nature, Politics, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 4th, 2010,
While Japan has been getting almost all the blame for decimating the Earth’s bluefin tuna stocks, the European Union has been quietly facilitating – and even funding – the overfishing of exhausted fish populations such as bluefin and cod. So says research by Poseidon Aquatic Resource Management consultancy and Pew Environment Group, who analyzed data from the EU’s ‘Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance’ (FIFG). The groups found that only 17% of subsidies went towards reducing overfishing and environmental protection, while 29% went to what the study terms ‘negative measures’, such as building more powerful fishing vessels. EU countries Spain, Portugal…
Tags: bluefin, EU, overfishing, subsidies, tuna
