Sustainable Switch Climate Focus: From EU water-saving funds to melting glaciers
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Water, nature's liquid lifeline, tops today's newsletter as Europe looks to curb agricultural water waste, while large glaciers are breaking apart in Argentina. Further down is a 'Climate Lens' on the rising tensions between India and Pakistan over control of the Indus River, as we wrap up with Britain's Thames Water deepening debt crisis.
Let's dive into the European Union's water-saving proposal first.
This week, a draft Commission proposal seen by Reuters, showed that the European Commission is considering offering new subsidies to farmers who invest in wasting less water when the bloc's huge farming subsidy program is renewed.
The draft EU policy proposal said the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will address the intense pressure on Europe's water supplies from industry and climate change and would include new "transition packages" of advice and funding for farmers to improve their water management.
The subsidies could help farmers pay for more drought-resistant crops, or precision irrigation tools that waste less water than traditional irrigation systems.
"The Commission will include, under the future CAP, Transition Packages aiming to support and reward farmers engaging in transformational and structural changes to improve the environmental and climate performance of their holdings, including towards a better water management," the draft said.
The Commission's draft water strategy said the European Investment Bank will also increase its spending on water sector investments, including on restoring ecosystems like wetlands that can help buffer against floods.
The EU's farming subsidies are worth around 387 billion euros, about a third of its overall budget for 2021-2027. EU countries are preparing for tough negotiations later this year, on the next budget.
What to Watch
A trial is underway on England's south coast, where scientists are harnessing the ocean's natural power to extract CO2 from seawater, which is absorbed from the atmosphere. Click here or the image above for more.
Climate Commentary
Number of the Week
98.78%
That's the percentage of creditors of Thames Water, Britain's embattled water supplier, who voted in favor of the second consent request for its debt restructuring proposals. Thames Water has been battling against a financial collapse since last year and recently appointed KKR to help it raise new equity.
Sustainable Switch Climate Focus was edited by Tomasz Janowski
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The Sun
21 minutes ago
- The Sun
UK is drowning in debt but striking junior doctors want huge pay rises – patients died last time before 22% increase
TUESDAY brought yet more grim news for the public finances. The Office For National Statistics revealed that in June, the Government was forced to borrow £20.7billion. 4 4 That was £6.6billion higher than last June — and all this in spite of the £40billion of tax rises announced in last October's Budget. The Government is drowning in debt. Paying interest on its accumulated debts is costing the taxpayer £100billion a year — almost double what we spend on defence. There is little hope of improvement. Economic growth is virtually non-existent, productivity is flat-lining and tax rises are failing to raise as much revenue as the Chancellor hoped, as taxpayers choose to work less hard, rearrange their tax affairs or, in some cases, emigrate. But there is one place where you can be sure the news will not have sunk in: the offices of Britain's public sector unions. Lining pockets In fact, the BMA — which is rapidly inheriting the mantle of the country's most militant trade union from the Rail, Maritime And Transport union — chose the moment to request that its consultant members charge the NHS at least £188 an hour to provide cover during the junior doctors' five-day strike, which begins tomorrow, rising to £313 an hour for weekend work. It could mean some consultants lining their pockets with up to £6,000 this weekend. It isn't hard to see the BMA's logic: it wants to try to break the NHS's finances to force the Government to give in. In spite of the extravagant bills demanded by consultants, the NHS will still not be providing a normal service during the latest walkout. During the last set of strikes by junior doctors — who now demand to be called 'resident doctors' to disguise the fact they are still in training — more than a million treatments ended up being cancelled. Wes Streeting brutally slams Kemi AND Farage and demands Tories say sorry for how they ran the NHS in blistering attack It's been reported that coroners' findings mentioned the strikes in five deaths, but that is almost certainly a gross under-estimate. During the week of one 72-hour strike in March 2023, the ONS recorded 2,247 'excess deaths' — the number of deaths above what might have been expected from the average of the previous five years over that period. Deep down, the BMA's hard men seem to realise the harm that they are causing. Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, the co-chair of the BMA's Resident Doctors' Committee, told Times Radio yesterday that consultants who refused to cancel their normal clinics in order to man A&E departments would be guilty of a 'dereliction of duty'. Yet strangely, he did not seem to want to apply the same term to junior doctors who walk out on strike. We all appreciate what doctors do, of course — yet even miners' leader Arthur Scargill at the height of his pomp was not as unreasonable as the BMA is being. 4 Junior doctors received a 22 per cent pay increase last year and have already been offered an inflation-busting 5.4 per cent this year. Their claim that they need a 29 per cent increase this year to return their pay in real terms to 2008 levels is fallacious. They made that calculation using the Retail Prices Index, a long-discredited measure which has been criticised for exaggerating inflation. Some junior doctors can now earn £100,000 a year, including overtime. What's more, they have a generous pension scheme which involves the taxpayer contributing an extra 20.68 per cent of their pay to their pension pot. When they retire, their pensions will be linked to their lifetime earnings and will be inflation-proofed. Such deals are virtually unknown now in the private sector, where employers make average pension contributions equivalent to just 4.5 per cent of an employee's pay — and where in most cases pension payouts are dependent on the performance of underlying investments. And it is not just the BMA which has lost its grasp of fiscal reality. Public sector unions are living in a parallel, dream universe where there is an infinite pot of money to meet their demands. On their side of the looking glass, workers have a fundamental right to above-inflation pay rises year on year without ever having to improve their productivity. Bankrolled by unions On the contrary, many seem to think they could still enjoy inflation-busting rises if their working week was reduced from five days a week to four. Sorry, but it doesn't work. Societies grow richer by being more productive. And that is something which seems to have eluded Britain's public sector for the past three decades. 4 Astonishingly, according to ONS figures, the average worker in the public sector now produces less than they did when Tony Blair took office 28 years ago. That is an unparalleled era of non-achievement. The unions seem to be counting on the current Government being equally blind to the dire state of the public finances. Starmer's administration has shown itself so far to be a pushover — which is hardly surprising when you consider that the Labour Party is bankrolled by the unions. But no government will be able to ignore for much longer Britain's reckoning with its debts. What happened under Liz Truss was just a foretaste of what is to come if global bond investors lose confidence in the UK Government's ability to repay its dues. When that happens, Britain will be in the situation Greece was 14 years ago when public salaries and pensions had to be slashed to avoid national bankruptcy. Public sector unions will wail all they like, but they would have helped bring the disaster on themselves.
Reuters
23 minutes ago
- Reuters
Wall Street ends higher, gold retreats as trade talks progress boosts markets
NEW YORK, July 23 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks advanced on Wednesday and Treasury yields reversed their three-day slide after word of a trade deal between the United States and Japan, while a report of a similar deal with the European Union provided welcome signs of progress in President Donald Trump's multi-front tariff negotiations. All three major U.S. stock indexes closed in positive territory ahead of hotly anticipated quarterly reports from Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab. Gold prices backed away from a five-week high as risk-on sentiment lured investors away from the safe-haven metal. Trump reached a trade agreement with Japan with just over a week remaining before an August 1 deadline. The deal spares Japan from bruising new levies on autos and other goods in exchange for a $500 billion package of investment and loans bound for the United States, and stands as the most significant trade deal yet to emerge since Trump's market-rattling "liberation day" tariff announcement in April. The European Union and the United States are nearing an agreement on a similar trade deal that would impose 15% tariffs on European imports, while waiving duties on some items, according to officials from the European Commission. This follows a deal with the Philippines, and raises hopes that more deals could be in the offing. "The storm clouds parting and the macro situation looks to be improving," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist of CFRA Research in New York. "Japan has signed a trade agreement, fingers are crossed for the EU, and investors are feeling optimistic that either more trade agreements will be announced before the August 1st deadline or postponements will be granted." Second-quarter earnings season is underway, with 23% of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 85% have beaten Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG data. Analysts currently predict year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth, on aggregate, of 7.5%, marking a solid improvement over the 5.8% growth estimates as of July 1. High-profile results from Magnificent 7 members Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab will be closely scrutinized by investors, particularly any forward guidance that might shed light on expenditures and payoffs surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI). As major tech and tech-related megacaps post results, Wall Street's reliance on a small number of momentum stocks will be put to the test. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI), opens new tab rose 507.85 points, or 1.14%, to 45,010.29, the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab rose 49.35 points, or 0.78%, to 6,358.97 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC), opens new tab rose 127.33 points, or 0.61%, to 21,020.02. Optimism over a potential U.S.-EU trade deal lifted European shares, with automakers leading the rally. Should the talks fail, the European Union is preparing to unveil retaliatory measures. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS), opens new tab rose 10.16 points, or 1.09%, to 939.94. The pan-European STOXX 600 (.STOXX), opens new tab index rose 1.08%, while Europe's broad FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3), opens new tab rose 23.70 points, or 1.10%. Emerging market stocks (.MSCIEF), opens new tab rose 19.23 points, or 1.54%, to 1,267.28. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab closed higher by 1.53%, to 666.81, while Japan's Nikkei (.N225), opens new tab rose 1,396.40 points, or 3.51%, to 41,171.32. U.S. Treasury yields moved higher after three straight days of declines as trade optimism fueled risk-on sentiment. The yield on benchmark U.S. 10-year notes rose 5.2 basis points to 4.388%, from 4.336% late on Tuesday. The 30-year bond yield rose 4.1 basis points to 4.944% from 4.903% late on Tuesday. The 2-year note yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations for the Federal Reserve, rose 5.5 basis points to 3.886%, from 3.831% late on Tuesday. The dollar eased as the yen gathered strength and the euro inched higher as trade negotiations progressed. The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies including the yen and the euro, fell 0.27% to 97.20, with the euro up 0.18% at $1.1774. Against the Japanese yen , the dollar weakened 0.1% to 146.48. In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell 1.08% to $118,485.91. Ethereum declined 2.99% to $3,596.61. Oil prices dropped as trade uncertainties ebbed. U.S. crude dipped 0.09% to $65.25 per barrel, while Brent settled at $68.51 per barrel, down 0.12% on the day. Spot gold fell 1.19% to $3,390.12 an ounce. U.S. gold futures fell 1.29% to $3,395.00 an ounce.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Former firefighters' union chief Matt Wrack wins NASUWT leadership election
Matt Wrack has been elected as the permanent general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union. The union held its first contested leadership election in decades after it faced legal action over the appointment of its new leader. Mr Wrack, the former leader of the Fire Brigades Union, secured 5,249 votes to beat Neil Butler, NASUWT's national officer for Wales, who received 3,126 votes, the union has announced. A postal ballot of members closed on Wednesday. Only 4.7% of eligible NASUWT members took part in the first contested leadership election since 1990. Mr Wrack was announced as union leader in April after he was endorsed by the national executive to replace Patrick Roach. However, Mr Butler took legal action against the union after its national executive committee told him he was not eligible to stand for the position as a non-member. Mr Butler and Luke Lockyer, the union's president in Wales, sought 'injunctive relief' to force the union to reopen nominations. NASUWT reached an agreement to head off High Court legal action over the ballot, and the union agreed to pay £65,000 of Mr Butler and Mr Lockyer's costs and VAT. NASUWT announced in June that the leadership election would go ahead after Mr Wrack and Mr Butler both met the threshold of being nominated either by the NASUWT national executive or by a minimum of 25 local associations. Mr Wrack said: 'I am immensely honoured to be elected general secretary of NASUWT. 'I want to thank every member who participated in this election for placing their trust in me. 'NASUWT is a proud and powerful voice for teachers, and together we will make that voice even stronger. 'I pay tribute to Dr Patrick Roach for his years of service and to Neil Butler for a spirited campaign that highlighted the issues our members care about. 'Now, our priority is unity and action. ' Teachers have endured years of underinvestment, overwork, and undervaluing of our profession. 'We urgently need Government to invest in education – that means fair pay, manageable workloads, and safe, respectful working environments for staff and students. 'I will work tirelessly with our executive and activists across all nations to secure the conditions and respect teachers deserve. 'This is a critical moment for education, and NASUWT will lead the way in fighting for our members' rights.' Wayne Broom, NASUWT president, said: 'We congratulate Matt on his election as general secretary of NASUWT. 'This election engaged our members up and down the country, and the result reflects their confidence in his leadership. 'Matt will play a vital role in the next chapter of the union's work on behalf of teachers across the UK. 'The national executive and I look forward to working closely with him as we continue our mission to put teachers first. 'We also want to thank Neil Butler for standing in this election and for his ongoing service to NASUWT – his dedication exemplifies the strength of this union's democracy.'
