By Lucy Hatton
Last Tuesday (17 January) German MEP Martin Schulz became the new President of the European Parliament (EP). He may have won a majority at the mid-term presidential election but his election is certainly not without controversy.
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Adrian Hart has written an insightful piece about the Macpherson report and its aftermath at this link.
Yesterday on The New York Times online and today in the print edition, economist Paul Krugman discussed why ‘America Isn’t a Corporation’. Krugman makes a number of interesting points that all politicians would do well to remember, however, he perhaps fails to explain one of the most important reasons that a state is not a corporation: that it is not exposed to competitive pressures.
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Energy experts warn that unwarranted support for wind-power is hindering genuinely cleaner energy
The focus on wind-power, driven by the renewables targets, is preventing Britain from effectively reducing CO2 emissions, while crippling energy users with additional costs, according to a new Civitas report. The report finds that wind-power is unreliable and requires back-up power stations to be available in order to maintain a consistent electricity supply to households and businesses. This means that energy users pay twice: once for the window-dressing of renewables, and again for the fossil fuels that the energy sector continues to rely on. Contrary to the implied message of the Government’s approach, the analysis shows that wind-power is not a low-cost way of reducing emissions.
Electricity Costs: the folly of wind-power, by economist Ruth Lea, uses Government-commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity generation in the UK to calculate the most cost-effective technologies. When all costs are included, gas-fired power is the most cost-efficient method of generating electricity in the short-term, while nuclear power stations become the most cost-efficient in the medium-term.
On Wednesday, the Guardian published an article in ‘Comment is Free’ dismissing the claims made in Civitas’ latest report, CO2.1: Beyond the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (available here). Damien Morris, the author of the article and senior policy advisor at Sandbag, described the report as ‘cynical’ and containing ‘remorseless pessimism’. What is the report’s crime? To argue that the EU’s flagship environmental scheme delivers no environmental benefit and is being manipulated by governments, businesses and bankers for profit and should therefore be scrapped. There was no discussion of the report’s positive messages of alternative ways to reduce carbon emissions, if that is what we must do, for much less cost while also reducing the future price of energy.
Read the rest of this article on The Commentator here
By Lucy Hatton
There is suggestion that Hungary’s position in the European Union may no longer be tenable after the coming into force of the new Hungarian Constitution, or Fundamental Law, on 1 January. This controversial constitution has been heavily criticised for being overly right-wing and eroding the democracy so precious to Hungary since the fall of communism in the country in 1989. The contradiction between some of the provisions of the new constitution and those democratic values inherent in the treaties of the EU has led to the claim from a former US Ambassador to Budapest, that Hungary “won’t be tolerated if it no longer counts as a democracy”.
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