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.