The Conservatives sell of Green Investment Bank and delay the Carbon Reduction Plan till after the election
Issue # 2 , 22 nd April
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Desire for change
The result highlights France ’ s desire for change after the first time in history of the 5 th republic that not one of the main 2 political parties are through to the 2 nd round . However , the change they have voted for won ’ t be the change they seek , Macron , a former banker has backing from the other candidates except Melenchon , he refused to back either and Le
Pen is the leader of an openly fascist party . France flirts with fascism every so often but the country with Liberté , égalité , fraternité minted on their coins has in the past rallied to vote overwhelmingly against those ideals .
The real change candidate was there and it was in the form of Jean-Luc Melenchon , whether he had ideas that could work , he was different from the other three candidates ahead of him . Melenchon ran an impressively progressive campaign , using social media to full effect and even holding simultaneous meetings in several cities via hologram . He also ran on a leftwing platform , that included environmental protection , renegotiations of EU treaties , formation of the 6 th Republic , and redistribution of wealth .
Whilst the depths of his policies may be unfeasible , he is something different and politicians like Le Pen and Macron are no different from who is in power now , in fact , Le Pen ’ s policies undermine France ’ s motto Liberté , égalité , fraternité .
The Conservatives sell of Green Investment Bank and delay the Carbon Reduction Plan till after the election
By Matthew Clifton
The Conservative party have had a dubious time under Theresa May , especially when it comes to energy , environment and climate change . With the appointment of Andrea Leadsom as the minister for the Department of Environment , Food and Rural Affairs ( DEFRA ), who had to ask whether climate change was real . Significant cuts to the renewable sector , cutting the Department of Energy and Climate Change entirely ( DECC ) and pushing forward with fracking and nuclear as
viable energy options .
However , recently the government has been constantly delaying the Carbon Emission Reduction plan and has now approved the sale of the Green Investment Bank ( GIB ) to Australian firm Macquarie for £ 2.3 billion .
On paper the deal sounds good but the GIB is one of the more successful stories of the coalition government . It was set up in 2012 to push for further investments into emerging environmentally friendly investments . The firm Macquarie tend to favour stakes in companies that promote fracking . Recently they have set-up 6 new subsidiaries in the UK , this is often preparation large companies take to begin asset stripping from companies they invest in .
Their website claims that they are the largest investor in renewable energy and they have said that they would increase
2 funding into renewable energy . But what they will do is merely conjecture now . The selling off the GIB underlines May ’ s governments unwilling to commit environmental and climate change issues . It is private sector that is investing into renewable energy with government funding dropping , with the focus on fracking and nuclear , the government could stand to waste billions of public funds on schemes that will be outdated soon .
They have also pushed the Carbon Emissions Reduction back to beyond the general election , whilst this seems sensible , it is a cross-party issue . May is playing political games with the health of the people , and the government have been delaying it for months because they don ’ t have a plan nor do they care to have a plan that will benefit society . This delay continues to highlight the Conservative policy on clean energy and renewable technology , their regressive thought process is economically damaging as well as socially .