Boris Johnson stated during his keynote speech at Masdar’s Green Hydrogen Summit in Abu Dhabi that while his nation had hosted COP26 in 2021, hosting COP28 in Dubai later in 2023 had proven to be more difficult.

“There was a difference between COP26 and COP28,” Boris Johnson noted.

The Glasgow United Nations Summit took place before Russia’s war with Ukraine, the spike in hydrocarbon costs, and the general lack of confidence in Net Zero.

“And with all due respect to all of you here in Abu Dhabi, I must say that while we completed the soft COP, you completed the tough COP, if you understand what I mean,” the former British Prime Minister stated.

“But you were victorious. The UAE Presidency overcame negative coverage in some international media outlets that were pessimistic about the outcomes of the COP28. You also fared better than the expectations of non-governmental organisations, and by using your persuasive technological arguments, you convinced people to abandon fossil fuels here in the world’s largest and richest hydrocarbon basin,” he added further.

With its close ties to the United Arab Emirates, Boris Johnson, who was London’s mayor from 2008 to 2016 and prime minister from 2019 to 2022, claimed that during his tenure, the city had earned the moniker “eighth emirate.”

He claimed that during that period, the two nations had entered a new golden age of cooperation.

He went on to say that the United Kingdom had been able to reconsider and shift its perspective on power generation as a result of the UAE’s utilisation of solar farms and other renewable energy projects. He specifically mentioned Emirati involvement in Masdar through the London Array wind farm off the Essex coast.

One of the biggest planned offshore wind farms in the world, Dogger Bank South by Masdar, is presently undergoing the UK planning procedure, he said.

Boris Johnson further suggested that surplus energy from the farm may be utilised to contribute to the production of green hydrogen, which could eventually be used to power aircraft engines.

But to proceed, he continued, it was critical to get past reservations and scepticism regarding hydrogen as a power source.

“These things require political leadership, patience, and unwavering innovation. And that innovation necessitates ever closer collaboration between nations like the UK and the UAE, ranging from batteries to artificial intelligence,” he declared.

The post Boris Johnson hails UAE-UK collaboration in green technology appeared first on International Finance.

Rishi Sunak, who emerged victorious after a three-way leadership race between him, former PM Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt, will take over the Prime Ministerial responsibilities from Liz Truss, who relinquished her post after a tumultuous 45-day stay at ’10 Downing Street’.

Multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak will be the third British PM in two months since the ouster of the “Face of Brexit” Boris Johnson.

Born on 12 May, 1980 in Hampshire’s Southampton, Rishi Sunak’s parents, Yashvir and Usha are Indian Punjabis. While his grandfathers were born in British India, his father and mother were born in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. The families migrated to the United Kingdom during the 1960s.

Rishi Sunak did his schooling at Romsey-based Stroud School and Winchester College. He even served as a restaurant waiter during his summer holidays. He graduated from Lincoln College, with a topper rank in 2001. His association with the conservative party started during his stay at Oxford University where completed an internship at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters. In 2006, he completed his MBA from Stanford University.

Rishi Sunak’s White Collar journey and his marriage
Rishi Sunak was a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004, followed by a stint at the hedge fund management firm “The Children’s Investment Fund Management”. He became a partner there in 2006. In 2009, he joined another similar company called “Theleme Partners”. Rishi Sunak also worked as a director in “Catamaran Ventures”, owned by his father-in-law and Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. Rishi Sunak married the Indian businessman’s daughter Akshata Murthy in 2009. Akshata has a 0.91% stake (valued at USD 900 million) in Infosys.

The couple has two daughters. Akshata is also a director at “Catamaran Ventures”. They own properties such as Kirby Sigston Manor in North Yorkshire, a mews house in central London, a flat on Old Brompton Road, London, and a penthouse apartment in California’s Santa Monica.

Rishi Sunak, a Coca-Cola fan, is also a cricket and horse-racing enthusiast. As per the 2022 Sunday Times Rich List of 2022, the couple is the United Kingdom’s 222nd wealthiest, with a combined fortune of £730 million. Before Rishi Sunak, no other British politician made the list.

Rishi Sunak’s political journey
Rishi Sunak’s tryst with United Kingdom electoral politics started in 2014, when he became the Conservative MP from Richmond in Yorkshire. He won the same seat in 2015 as well and became a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee of the British Parliament.

While Rishi Sunak supported Brexit in 2016, He even advocated the establishment of free ports and a retrial bond market for small and medium businesses. After winning the 2017 polls, he became the parliamentary under-secretary of state for local government from January 2018 to July 2019. He openly campaigned for Boris Johnson as Theresa May’s successor during the 2019 Conservative Party Leadership polls.

After Boris Johnson became the UK PM, Sunak became the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In 2019, he got re-elected again as the Conservative MP, thus maintaining his clean sheet in polls.

Rishi Sunak’s real test came in 2020, when he had to handle the COVID-19 fallouts just after becoming the Finance Secretary.

Succeeding Sajid Javid in February 2020, he presented his first budget on March 11, in the middle of the pandemic. He introduced measures such as £30 billion of additional spending, £330 billion as emergency support for businesses and an employee furlough scheme.

The measures, however, didn’t sit well with the Brits, as many workers were reported couldn’t qualify for the United Kingdom Treasury’s income support mechanism.

Even the Institute of Employment Studies said that an estimated 100,000 people could not be eligible for the stimuli. The British Hospitality Association too claimed that some 500,000 professionals from this sector were deprived of this assistance.

Rishi Sunak also was a part of the ministerial panel which monitored the pandemic situation in the United Kingdom and was vested with decision-making power. However, in 2022, during a probe on an alleged party in 10 Downing Street, in the middle of the lockdown, a penalty notice was served to Sunak as well, as he allegedly attended the gathering.

Rishi Sunak’s employee retention scheme was aimed at providing funds to business leaders to pay 80% of their staff wages and employment costs (The total amount sums up to a total of £2,500 per person monthly). The scheme ran till December 2021. However, there were allegations too against this scheme.

In 2020, the United Kingdom Fraud Advisory Panel, in a letter to Rishi Sunak and National Audit Office, warned about the potential fraud against such stimulus schemes. The organisation even asked for the publication of the company details receiving Bounce Back Loans, for the purpose of data matching and detecting frauds.

In September of that year, the state-owned British Business Bank warned the Boris Johnson government of fraud risks against financial support schemes.

In January 2021, the United Kingdom National Crime Agency reported arrests regarding Bounce Back Loan scams worth £6 million. In 2022, a Freedom of Information request to the British Business Bank found that some 193,000 businesses had failed to meet their repayment terms to the United Kingdom government.

Even the government has estimated that £4.9 billion of bounce-back loans were lost to scams.

Rishi Sunak has also been known to come up with unconventional ways to deal with the UK economic slowdown since 2020.

One of them has been “Future Fund”, a £1.1 billion investment portfolio set up in 2020. This fund helped nearly 2000 start-ups during the COVID period. However, a fraud angle emerged here as well, with an official supervising the portfolio called most of these companies “Zombie Businesses”.

Another one was “Eat Out to Help Out”, under which the United Kingdom government subsidised food and soft drinks at eateries and pubs by 50% (up to £10 per person). From July to August 2020, the stimuli subsidized some £849 million worth of meals. However, a Warwick University study said that the scheme led to crowding in United Kingdom restaurants, cafes and pubs, resulting in a rise in COVID caseloads by 17%.

Rishi Sunak, during his 2021 budget, also raised the corporation tax from 19% to 25%. While the new rate will be applicable from 2023, this hike has been the first one since 1974.

In the same year, the G7 summit hosted by Rishi Sunak in London saw a tax reform pact being signed, under which a Global Minimum Tax Regime will be set up for multinational companies.

Rishi Sunak also lobbied for imposing a green levy which would increase conventional fuel Prices. The goal was simple, arranging monetary support for the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The proposal called Fossil Fuels Emissions Trading Scheme sought to levy pollution from road transportation, shipping, building heating and diesel trains. However, Boris Johnson rejected the scheme.

Rishi Sunak’s idea of making cryptocurrency stablecoins for daily payment activities was flagged by the Bank of England, following which, he ordered the Royal Mint to create a government-backed “non-fungible token” or NFT, to be issued as early as 2022 summer. The process, however, hasn’t been completed yet.

Rishi Sunak gets his dream job, but challenges galore
While Rishi Sunak resigned as Chancellor on July 5, after a series of controversies engulfing the Boris Johnson government, he was leading the Conservative Party and United Kingdom PM leadership race, before Liz Truss edged past him. With Liz Truss gone now and the country in ruins, the 42-year-old faces challenges and quite a few of them.

A Reuters report has claimed about a “40 billion pounds of black hole in public finances” which needs immediate attention. While Jeremy Hunt took charge as the new Finance Secretary after the firing of Kwasi Kwarteng, he also warned about “taking tough decisions” in order to rebuild the country’s fiscal health.

While Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt will be introducing another mini budget on October 31, with the aim of launching spending cuts, they also need to honour the Conservative Party’s low taxation promise, which the former gave during the 2019 polls campaign.

The change of guard comes at a time when the global energy crisis and the subsequent ballooning electricity bills have resulted in more than 2 million households going into payment arrears, facing a possible energy supply disruption ahead of the winter.

Prices of pasta, meat and tea, along with other budget food items have soared by 17% within the United Kingdom, as the recession figure has crossed over the dreaded double-digit mark. Cooking oil value has gone up by 65%. All these price hikes are hitting the poorest of Brits hard.

While first-time home buyers are facing the heat due to the volatile property market, post the introduction of the Liz Truss government’s mini-budget, there are also reports of people compromising on their daily food habits to save costs. Even food banks and government schools providing free meals to their pupils are not spared from this cost of living crisis.

What Rishi Sunak said after becoming the PM
“I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda. This will mean difficult decisions to come.”

‘Mistakes were made. I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Liz Truss. She was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country. It is a noble aim. And I admired her restlessness to create change. But some mistakes were made — not born of ill will, or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes, nonetheless. And I have been elected as leader of my party and your prime minister, in part to fix them.”

“I fully appreciate how hard things are. And I understand too that I have work to do to restore trust after all that has happened. All I can say is that I am not daunted. I know the high office I have accepted and I hope to live up to its demands.”

“The government I lead will not leave the next generation —your children and grandchildren — with a debt to settle that we were too weak to pay ourselves.”

“I will deliver on (our manifesto’s) promise. A stronger NHS, better schools, safer streets, control of our borders, protecting our environment, supporting our armed forces, levelling up, and building an economy that embraces the opportunities of Brexit where businesses invest, innovate and create jobs.”

There is no second doubt about Rishi Sunak’s assessment of the United Kingdom’s current economic scenario. The next few months will be all about maintaining a tightrope walk between the austerity measures and shielding the Brits from the recession fallouts. The former Goldman Sachs analyst’s administrative experiences in handling extraordinary situations like COVID will be key here.

The post UK economic crisis: Make it or break it moment for Rishi Sunak appeared first on International Finance.

It might take a long time to find Johnson’s replacement, till then the fifth-largest economy in the world would be at risk of further drift at a time when the pound is close to two-year lows versus the dollar, and the Bank of England (BoE) is struggling to raise interest rates without hurting the economy.

There are many key questions hanging over like whether Britain’s economic policy and Brexit were responsible for Johnson’s resignation and what will happen to Britain’s economy?

Graham K. Wilson, Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin- Madison, Professor Emeritus Boston University, Political Science, USA told International Finance that during the 2016 campaign that led to Brexit, Boris Johnson proclaimed his devotion to “Cakeism” (the wish to have or do two good things at the same time when this is impossible), he denied the old adage that you cannot have (keep) your cake and eat it and argued that it was possible both to have and to eat one’s cake.

Originally used as an implausible but popular argument that the UK could have the benefits of EU membership whilst leaving it, Cakeism came to define Jonson’s approach to governing. The UK could be committed to fiscal probity without constraining spending or raising taxes.

The government promised major spending projects such as HS2 (High Speed 2 railway line) and spending on “leveling up” (reducing the degree of inequality between regions), whilst also promising to cut taxes and reduce budget deficits. Affluent Conservatives in the south east were promised tax cuts; the newly Conservative and formerly Labour constituencies in the north and midlands were promised better services and more government spending. The COVID crisis delayed confronting these contradictions.

According to Wilson, as in most developed democracies, the imperatives of containing the virus through lockdowns without devastating the economy resulted in large increases in government spending. As concern about COVID diminished, the consequences of the crisis measures on the budget became clear.

“Government expenditure as a percentage of GDP was higher than when Mrs Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979”, Wilson said.

Inflation carried more and more people into higher tax brackets and taxation was equivalent to the highest percentage of GDP since the Second World War. The British had acquired a very unsavory cake to eat and keep; high taxation, high taxes and high budget deficits. There was widespread agreement that key government services such as the National Health Service (NHS) were creaking under the strains of underfunding. To make matters worse, GDP is estimated to be about 5% lower than it would have been had the UK stayed in the EU.

“Because of Brexit and Johnson’s policies, the UK had the lowest growth rate amongst advanced democracies. There was no prospect of the UK growing its way out of its problems”, Wilson said.

Johnson’s fall
According to Wilson, the fall of Boris Johnson was superficially related to these issues. Johnson’s conviction for breaking rules on limiting social gatherings his government had created and a series of events during which he proved incapable of telling the truth were more directly related to his departure.Perhaps, however, Cakeism was another and deeper example of Johnson’s dishonesty, concealing from the public the hard choices that must be made.

“As the contest to replace him has unfolded, the contradictions of Cakeism became apparent. Candidates were differentiated on the basis of whether they were more concerned about cutting expenditure, reducing government deficits, maintaining “leveling up” or cutting taxes. Avoiding difficult choices had been the core of cakeism. It had been the basis of Johnson’s triumph on the 2019 General Election, adding formerly Labour constituencies to the Conservatives’ base in southern England. It was apparent, however, that cakeism was no longer possible”, Wilson said.

“Moving on from cakeism will be difficult. The British have long and plausibly been accused of wanting Scandinavian levels of government services and American levels of taxation. Boris Johnson told voters that living this dream was possible. The reality is that it is not”, Wilson added.

Rise in Inflation
Meanwhile, Emad Mohammad a Financial analyst at Hamilton, Ontario told International Finance that after Johnson’s resignation the inflation will increase more than other countries. He said that an inflation rate of 9%, which is at a 40-year high, is putting pressure on Britain. The BoE predicts that it will reach 11% later this year.

In April, the IMF predicted that the UK would experience slower growth and more persistent inflation than any other large economy in 2023.

“The recent decline in the value of the pound has intensified inflationary pressures, the idea of higher government spending or tax cuts to boost the prospects of the Conservative Party helped to boost the pound a little. But whoever succeeds Johnson will only be able to mitigate the effects of the spike in food and energy prices to a limited extent”, Mohammad said.

According to Mohammad, whoever replaces Johnson will have to make important fiscal and spending choices that may lessen the likelihood of a recession but potentially may raise the risk of inflation.

Mohammad said that Rishi Sunak had disagreed over policy with Johnson, who had long pushed for more tax cuts. Sunak’s short-term priority before he resigned was to ease the burden of Britain’s debt, which jumped above two trillion pounds during the coronavirus pandemic.

Priti Patel and Liz Truss, who served as Johnson’s interior and foreign ministries, are expected to argue for immediate tax cuts and more expenditure, while Sunak and the former health minister Sajid Javid are believed to be more fiscally conservative, according to analysts at US bank Citi. They will make decisions with significant long-term repercussions.

According to Britain’s budget watchdog, if future administrations do not tighten fiscal policies, debt may more than quadruple to over 320% of GDP in 50 years.

Fiscal support
According to a CNBC report, Modupe Adegbembo, G-7 economist at AXA Investment Management, said a key question is whether Johnson uses his ‘caretaker’ period as prime minister — should he be granted one — to push through short-term fiscal policies.

Adegbembo said, when a new Prime Minister is appointed, we see an increased likelihood of additional fiscal spending and/or tax cuts.

The potential to accelerate income tax cuts penciled in for 2024 may be floated by some candidates, although remains challenging in the light of public finance developments.

Her comments were echoed by strategists at UBS, who said a change in leadership makes further fiscal support more likely as a new prime minister will “want to prove themselves.”

“Any additional support for the UK economy would come at an opportune moment: The GDP growth estimate for March was –0.1% compared to February, and for April it was –0.3% versus March,” UBS CIO Mark Haefele’s team said.

“Another increase to the energy price cap means there is further pressure ahead, but while our base case is that the UK will narrowly escape recession, it is important to remember that the FTSE 100 generates just 25% of its revenues inside the UK, the team added.

Bank of England
The central bank of the United Kingdom has increased interest rates five times since December, the steepest run of increases in 25 years, and it has indicated it would continue to do so at its next meeting in August, possibly by as much as half a percentage point.

However, recent reductions in investor betting on that kind of significant shift by the BoE are due to the prospect of a worldwide economic slowdown. Another reason to exercise caution could be the ambiguity around the course of Britain’s fiscal policy.

More chaos?
While Johnson’s departure marks the end of another chapter in one of the most turbulent periods in modern British political history, it is unclear whether his successor will be able to bring order to the situation.

Kallum Pickering, an analyst at Berenberg said Britain’s economy would benefit if Johnson was replaced by “a more diligent and serious individual”. But the Citi analysts said they were skeptical that the different factions within the Conservative Party would unify around a clear strategy.

“In the months ahead, we see a UK heading into a once-in-a-generation squeeze in living standards, absent a defined strategy, and facing deep governmental division. The risk of profound policy error is therefore significant,” they said. “An early election should also not be discounted, though we still expect a contest only in 2024”, they added.

The post UK’s economic storm: Reason – Cakesim? appeared first on International Finance.

What is windfall tax?

A windfall tax is a one-time charge placed on a sector that has generated significant profits from an event for which they have no responsibility. Industry-specific windfall taxes have previously been imposed by the government.

For example, in 1981, then-Conservative chancellor Geoffrey Howe assessed the banks, claiming they had benefitted from high-interest rates. Gordon Brown, the Labour chancellor, earned £5.2 billion in 1997 with a windfall tax on privatized utilities.

Energy and power providers are under pressure to address the cost-of-living crisis.

Gordon Brown has proposed temporary state ownership of suppliers whose prices cannot be lowered.

Why it has been introduced?
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, oil and gas prices have increased drastically, sparking calls for the industry’s large profit margins to be taxed. Initially, Labour claimed that a one-time, annual windfall tax might generate £1.2 billion to pay for reductions in home energy costs.

In May, Rishi Sunak introduced the energy profits levy (EPL) following divisions within the government. It could last until the end of December 2025 and is designed to raise £5 billion as part of a £15 billion home support programme.

Who all have been taxed?
The energy profits levy included both well-known companies like BP and Shell as well as lesser-known ones like Harbour Energy, which actually extracts more oil from the North Sea than any other company in the UK. Although BP and Shell first claimed the energy profits levy might have an impact on their green projects, a BP executive has recently acknowledged the levy won’t have any.

Since then, BP, Shell, and Centrica, owner of British Gas, have all declared enormous profits, fueling even more resentment.

Rishi Sunak has threatened to tax electricity generators as well, erasing billions from the stock’s worth. He eventually changed his mind, and Boris Johnson said the charge wouldn’t be implemented, which contributed to a slight recovery in the stock price.

The average annual energy cost is now anticipated to exceed £4,000 starting in January, which puts the government’s choices for additional assistance under scrutiny.

Which companies are the biggest electricity generators?
There are businesses in Britain that generate energy from a variety of sources, including nuclear, wind, and coal-fired power plants.

While some companies, like Centrica and ScottishPower, focus on serving consumers directly, many are more concerned with providing electricity to retail providers.

The largest generators are SSE, E.ON, Ørsted, and Drax, which has a sizable power plant in North Yorkshire bearing its name.

According to estimates, charging generators may bring in between £3 billion and USD 4 billion.

Government’s position
With the legislature in recess and the Tory leadership election not having been decided as of yet (5 August), no action that calls for new legislation is about to be taken.

Big financial choices won’t be made by the government until Boris Johnson vacates Downing Street, according to a commitment.

The post What is windfall tax & why did Rishi Sunak introduce it? appeared first on International Finance.

She came in second in the first two Conservative members of Parliament elections, which were held on July 13 and 14. The party’s 180,000 or so members will vote on the last two candidates over the summer after additional votes have reduced the remaining five to just two.

If Mordaunt advances that far, she has a very good chance of winning because she is the member favorite, according to polls taken by the grassroots website ConservativeHome and pollster YouGov.

Who is she?

Mordaunt was born in 1973. Her father, a veteran paratrooper, gave her the British cruiser hms Penelope as her middle name. When she was nine years old, she claims that watching ships leave for the Falklands war in Portsmouth ignited her “passion and pride” in the United Kingdom (she is now a navy reservist).

After her mother passed away when she was 15 and her father became unwell the following year, her childhood became challenging. In addition to all the household responsibilities, she also had to raise her younger brother.

She attended the University of Reading while working as a magician’s assistant. In 2010, she won the Portsmouth North parliamentary seat.

Career

Under the premierships of David Cameron and Theresa May, her career flourished. She held the positions of secretary for foreign development, defense secretary, and minister of armed forces.

She supported Boris Johnson’s opponent Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership race.

Her allies claim that this put her out of favor; thus, she has held more minor jobs, including paymaster-general and commerce minister.

She is not thought to have strong ideological beliefs. Despite her support for Brexit, she is not fixated on the divorce. She paints a positive picture of contemporary Britain as a lighthearted nation of the NHS, pubs, and the Human Rights Act in Greater: Britain After the Storm, a book she co-authored last year.

She advises giving money to MPs to donate to charitable causes in their constituencies and that the volunteers who participated in the recent protests be given money to distribute to those causes. Her plans frequently place an emphasis on community-based rather than structural solutions.

The post Who is Penny Mordaunt? Will she clear the economic mess left by Johnson appeared first on International Finance.

To prevent the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from fracturing the international coalition, Biden and his counterparts will meet supplies and combat the inflation of gold from Russia.

The principal new economic restriction against Russia that emerged from the summit appears to be the prohibition on gold imports, which may result in a fine of tens of billions of dollars.

Officials from the administration chose not to reply when asked if additional sanctions will be applied.

It would be more difficult for Russia to compete in international markets if imports of gold were prohibited as they are Moscow’s second-largest export after energy.

The US Treasury will release a decision to forbid the entry of new gold into the country, further isolating Russia from the rest of the world’s economies by barring its participation in the gold market, according to a senior administration official.

According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the ban stated that it will directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Boris Johnson further added that Putin is unnecessarily spending his resources on this pointless war.

According to the White House, gold accounted for almost USD 19 billion, or approximately 5% of global gold exports, in 2020.

Image Credits: Narendra Modi @ Twitter

The post G7 bans Russian gold following Ukraine war appeared first on International Finance.

The GBM trade union said the price hike had crushed its members and that things look grim as rates continue to shoot up.

An NHS worker claimed that the fuel price rise exceeded their reimbursements on petrol costs. It means the staff had to pay to commute to the office and drive to the patient’s house for their job.

Another NHS worker, Tiffany, said fuel prices were the biggest chunk of her budget. She spends nearly £250 every month, but the government only reimburses £171.

Skyrocketing costs and a month-end NHS fuel reimbursement forced her to take a loan from her partner.

She claimed that her whole team was exhausted and their morale was low. She even said she feels worse now than during Covid when she was overworked but had more pay.

The waiting list in England for the NHS has hit a historic high of 6.4 million people. There is a staff shortage in the agency of almost 110,000 personnel.

The UK inflation rate hit 9% in April, a 40-year high. The essential workers are the first to feel the squeeze. Even seasoned taxi drivers in London are quitting the taxi businesses for something more affordable. As the global energy price cap is forecast to rise by 42%, it will be harder to hail an Uber as this continued trend could drive most Taxi drivers out of business.

The post Essential workers may quit as UK petrol prices reach all-time high appeared first on International Finance.

The couple has a combined wealth of £730 million, with most of their fortunes coming from tech and hedge funds. Sunak before donning the role of the Treasury department was a hedge fund manager.

Their assets include four luxury homes that the couple owns worth £15 million including a Santa Monica property where the popular movie of Baywatch was shot.

According to the Guardian, Sunak being named in the list of being the wealthiest will put pressure on the Boris Johnson government to alleviate the condition of the economically disadvantaged.

Currently, the UK is facing the highest rate of inflation in 40 years leaving close to half of the households struggling to pay their energy and food bills.

This development also comes just a month after the controversy broke over Akshata Murthy using a loophole to pay no tax in the UK.

Her non-domicile status allows her to pay zero tax in the UK citing she already pays tax on her dividend income of Infosys shares in India. Akshata is the daughter of one of the co-founders of Indian IT giant Infosys.

As a result of widespread criticism, she was forced to pay her taxes in the UK too.

Sunak and the Boris Johnson government were also criticized for their decision to increase tax for the working class in these unprecedented inflationary environments.

The post Rishi Sunak, Akshata Murthy are among the richest in UK appeared first on International Finance.

During the conference, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, “I want to see the UK’s green industrial revolution go global. The pace of change on clean technology and infrastructure is incredible, but no country should be left behind in the race to save our planet.”

“The climate has often been a silent victim of economic growth and progress, but the opposite should now be true. Through the clean green initiative, we can help to build back better and greener from the pandemic and put the world on the path to a more sustainable future.”

Last month, an Onward report said that the UK is lagging behind other countries in developing green technologies to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The report further revealed that UK’s carbon-intensive sectors like transport and construction are failing to invest enough in green innovation when compared to the likes of Germany or China.

In this regard, Tory ex-Cabinet minister Dame Caroline Spelman told the media, “Industries and regions are moving at a wide range of speeds towards net-zero; the critical differentiator to a more sustainable economy will be a clear focus on accelerating innovation in net-zero solutions.”

The post UK announces £3 bn for greentech during COP26 summit appeared first on International Finance.

What the past 2 years has looked like 
There is no denying that new car sales were poor in 2019, and it was diesel fuelled cars that took the biggest hit. The sale of new USD vehicles was down 2.3 percent overall. Of course, the plan to introduce additional ultra-low emission zones across the country alongside the impending fear of the ban on ICE vehicles was enough to discourage anyone from buying diesel. However, in some aspects, the growth of the electric car market softened the blow to the diesel market. 

Sales of electric vehicles rose by 144 percent in 2019. Why? Because motorists want fuel-efficient, high performance, low emission vehicles—and in the modern world that we live in—thanks to stark developments in automotive engineering—electric vehicles offer exactly that. In all parts of the automotive industry, 2020 has been noticeably bleak. Showrooms across the country forced to shut their doors and manufacturing plants unable to take delivery of parts have further contributed to the lack of buying invoked by the recession. Despite the market contraction, electric vehicle sales experienced a year-on-year rise of 184 percent in September. 

Looking back at the past
Electric vehicles had negative connotations in the nineties and twenty-tens: Poor mileage, expensive, and in most parts lacking in what Thierry Henry once described as ‘va va voom’. And this outlook was not  inaccurate. If you went to purchase an electric car, often these three attributes were true, and you were hardly spoilt for choice when it came to options either. The Prius changed the game admittedly, but even when it came to prominence, we were still left wanting more. 

With the world becoming now more environmentally conscious than ever, big brands have jumped on board with the demand for electric cars: Jaguar, Porsche, Renault, Audi, Hyundai and Nissan, to name just a few. Nissan, with its innovative model Nissan Leaf, has developed exactly what the average car manufacturer desired—a plug-in vehicle that had a mileage range of more than 200 miles—which was powerful, and perhaps more importantly, was affordable.

British government’s efforts to promote EVs 
It is no secret that diesel and petrol prices are rising. It would be naive to think that the currently depleted prices caused by Covid-19 will last beyond the end of 2020, and that once the oil market returns to some form of normalcy, we should expect to see fuel prices return to the prices they were displaying in the earlier months of 2020. 

To encourage more people to switch from emission-producing vehicles to electric or hybrid alternatives, the British government is now offering £3,500 grants. All of these efforts are in a way to help meet their ambitious net-zero targets in terms of emissions and air quality by 2050. 

Defining range anxiety 
Range anxiety is hardly unfounded. The Washington Post has defined it as the “state of fear of driver’s experience from knowing that their battery could run out of charge and strand them far from a recharging station.” Despite this, a study conducted by MIT suggests that this concern is a thing of the past. Firstly, the study points to the fact that a vehicle with a range of only 80 miles will sufficiently appease between 84 percent and 93 percent of daily trips of citizens living in a developed country. 

Electric vehicles have numerous types of chargers. In terms of weaker alternatives, level 1 and level 2 produce similar power to what you would usually find in a computer or a washing machine. These are the chargers commonly found in residential housing and parking spaces, providing a basic level of power, appropriate for short journeys. Meanwhile, level 3 found at charging stations, such as BMW i3’s SAE Combo, transfer 80km to 145km in 20 minutes, helping quash this aforementioned ‘range anxiety’ for the everyday motorist embarking on longer treks. In another example, Tesla’s exclusive level 4 superchargers power an astounding 270km in 30 minutes. It is predicted that within the next five years, level 4 will be readily available.

The post Are EVs becoming an economic concept? appeared first on International Finance.