News round-up, Wednesday, January 04, 2023
“Everyone is afraid of this winter and tough times,” said Lorand Csurkuj Kalaman, a 42-year-old Roma from the northern Romanian region of Maramureș with five children, who says his monthly bills exceed his monthly income of €550.”
In 2022, we were unstoppable in accelerating the future of energy.
Let's reflect on our some of our best moments:
1. We announced our intent to exit coal by the end of 2025 and increased our ownership of AES Andes from 67% to 98%.
2. Fast Company ranked AES in the top ten of its “Best 100 Workplaces for Innovators” list.
3. We helped restore power to the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane Fiona. Like Hawaii, we are also helping Puerto Rico in its energy transition by deploying solar plus storage on the island.
4. We released our IRP for AES Indiana, which serves as a roadmap for the company’s power generation goals. It included renewables, storage, and converting coal facilities to cleaner energy .
5. Together with Air Products, we announced a $4 billion mega-scale green hydrogen production facility in the United States, the largest green hydrogen project in the nation.
Reforestation day…
Since July 2015, Seaboard has been sponsoring a permanent brigade to contribute to the sustained work of recovering the forested area in the Upper Ozama River Basin.
Altice delivers innovative, customer-centric products and solutions that connect and unlock the limitless potential of its over 30 million customers over fiber networks and mobile…
Winter energy emergency ‘a question of life and death’ for Europe’s Roma
Experts fear soaring energy bills may push Roma communities to the brink.
BY VICTOR JACK
POLITICO EU
DECEMBER 21, 2022 12:45 PM CET
Europe's energy price emergency is hitting the Continent's vulnerable people the hardest — and some of the most at-risk are its 12 million Roma.
The EU is scrambling to figure out how to rein in soaring natural gas prices, which has sent power prices spiraling. Those higher bills are a disaster for people already living on the edge.
“Everyone is afraid of this winter and tough times,” said Lorand Csurkuj Kalaman, a 42-year-old Roma from the northern Romanian region of Maramureș with five children, who says his monthly bills exceed his monthly income of €550.
“It affects me very hard,” he said, adding that his family relies on firewood for heating and has received no support from local authorities for heating despite submitting the relevant documents.
In Romania, for example, the 2 million Roma earn 40 percent less than the median salary, according to Alin Banu, the national coordinator at the local Roma NGO Aresel, who adds that average utility bills there are now roughly double what a family receives from the state each month.
Getting enough support from the state this winter will be a crucial lifeline for the country's Roma, for whom this is now “a question of life and death,” he said.
Romania's government said that it “provides support for home heating to all citizens that require it ... regardless of their ethnicity” including up to €418 in aid per individual, and Bucharest has “taken measures to reduce the negative impact of the crisis, such as limiting excessively high prices of firewood.”
Roma face tough times across the region.
In Serbia, where there are roughly 500,000 Roma, local nonprofit Opre Roma Serbia has helped organize regular protests on behalf of a Roma community over perceived inaction by local authorities that's left dozens of families without electricity for seven months.
“A lot of kids are getting cold because of the weather,” said Opre Roma Serbia's Jelena Reljić. “I cannot even imagine how hard it is, how hard it is for them to actually live without electricity.”
Serbia's energy ministry is now signaling it might connect residents to the grid, according to the charity.
Roma families without regular grid connections can sometimes buy electricity illegally from neighbors and can fall into debt by borrowing from loan sharks. All of this means the “tragic scenario” of increased numbers of Roma freezing to death this winter is “quite possible,” Banu said.
Falling through the cracks
In Western Europe, “many communities live in relatively better conditions,” ERRC’s Lee said.
In Britain, about four-fifths of Roma people live in permanent housing rather than traveler sites, but “the general housing situation for the Roma in the U.K. is that they live in the poorer areas … in overcrowded housing situations,” said Mihai Calin Bica, a policy coordinator at the London-based NGO Roma Support Group.
Nicoleta, a 41-year-old Roma single mother and housekeeper who lives in a one-bedroom flat in north London, says she’s more than £400 in debt to her landlord after she used her rent money to pay energy bills.
Almost half of Europe’s Roma people are classed as “working poor” | José Sena Goulao/EPA-EFE
“I can't even remember the last time I used the oven” thanks to surging energy costs, she said. “I work three, four days per week and I barely survive.”
A November survey by Scottish NGO Romano Lav found that 91.5 percent of Roma people in Glasgow’s Govanhill area were worse off than six months ago, while 86 percent were scared of running out of money for food — even if they recieve £66 off their energy bills as part of Britain’s energy support scheme.
Of the nomadic Roma living in campsites, roughly one-third in southeastern England can't access energy bill support since this requires a direct contract with an electricity provider — and often the local authority is the only contractor at camp sites, according to Abbie Kirkby of the nonprofit Friends, Families and Travellers.
And since 97 percent of these sites have no access to mains gas, people instead rely on gas bottles — and those prices have also surged, she said.
With months of winter ahead, “the crunch is not quite there” yet Kirkby said, adding: “It's going to be very challenging year for gypsy and traveller families.”
Czech industrial model shaken by energy crisis
Heavily dependent on the automotive sector, cheap energy and Germany, the Czech economy will experience one of the biggest slowdowns in Eastern Europe in 2023.
By Marie Charrel
Published on January 4, 2023
Officially, the decision had only been postponed, but it would have come at the right time to brighten up the Czech economic outlook, which is very gloomy for the months to come. On Friday, December 9, the Volkswagen Group announced that due to economic uncertainties, it would not immediately choose the location of its next electric battery gigafactory, planned for Eastern Europe.
The Czech government had been campaigning for months to have the site in Plzen, in the east-central part of the country, over its Hungarian, Slovakian and Polish competitors. "If there's the option of building a battery factory in Europe, where electricity costs €0.15 per kilowatt hour, but it's possible to get it in China or America for €0.02 or €0.03, we are not in a position to say that we will make this choice out of solidarity," said Thomas Schäfer, the group's boss, immediately after the announcement.
For the Czech Republic, the stakes are colossal: "This gigafactory is decisive for the future of our automotive industry and, above all, for its ability to make the shift to electric," said Jiri Dvorak, a specialist on this issue at the Grant Thornton consulting firm in Prague. And, more broadly, it is crucial for the whole country: The automotive industry alone counts for 10% of the gross domestic product (GDP), 8% of jobs and 25% of exports.
Worsened by the energy crisis
Highly dependent on Germany, which takes in a third of its manufacturing, the Czech industrial sector as a whole represents nearly 30% of GDP – the highest level in Europe. "However, it has been particularly badly affected since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic" in early 2020, explained Grzegorz Sielewicz, a regional specialist at French credit insurer Coface. Penalized by the collapse of demand and the German economic slowdown, the industry has, in the meantime, faced shortages of semiconductors. This hindered manufacturing recovery in 2021.
The government was slow to respond and then introduced a cap on gas and electricity prices in November 2022
"Can you imagine, the Volkswagen model I ordered in October 2021 won't arrive until April 2023?" said Mr. Dvorak. Not surprisingly, the energy crisis has made the situation even worse. Before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the country was 52.5% dependent on fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas largely imported from Russia); 40.8% nuclear power, thanks to its two power plants; and only 6.7% renewable energy.
In November, inflation climbed to 17.2%, including 34.3% for gas, electricity and fossil fuels, according to Eurostat. "For our electro-intensive industries, such as glass, metallurgy and chemicals, which are large consumers of gas, the shock is brutal," observed Oldrich Sklenar, a researcher at the Association for International Affairs, an independent research center based in Prague. The government was initially slow to react and then introduced a cap on gas and electricity prices for households and small businesses in November 2022. This was later extended to large companies.
It also plans to build a new nuclear reactor at the Dukovany plant (the American-Canadian Westinghouse, the French EDF and the Korean KHNP have submitted bids) in order to reduce its dependence on hydrocarbons. "But the cap will not be enough to limit the effects of price increases already recorded," warned Nicholas Farr, a country specialist at Capital Economics. "The weight of industry means that the Czech economy will experience the greatest slowdown in Eastern Europe," added Frantisek Taborsky at ING.
'We are at a turning point'
In fact, the European Commission expects growth of only 0.1% in 2023 – lower than in Slovakia (0.5%), Poland (0.7%) and the European average (0.3%). Business activity will be largely pulled down by Germany, which is expected to be in recession in 2023 (-0.6%). This is all while the Czech Republic has not yet recovered its pre-pandemic GDP level. "Beyond the emergency, it's the very economic model of the country that's being called into question," said David Marek, chief economist at Deloitte Consulting in Prague.
"Now industry must shift upmarket, and we also have to diversify into services," David Marek, chief economist at Deloitte Consulting, Prague
"We are at a turning point. Industry will no longer be able to rely on cheap energy, as it has for the past 40 years," added Pavel Sobisek, an economist at UniCredit in Prague. But the country still has a solid foundation and a long industrial tradition. Bohemia was the manufacturing heartland of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – Skoda Auto, its flagship car company bought by Volkswagen in 1991, was founded in 1895. And Czechoslovakia was one of Europe's leading industrial powers when it gained independence in 1918.
After the communist period and collectivization of the means of production, the country succeeded in modernizing its factories by turning to the West. "Now industry must shift upmarket, and we also have to diversify into services," said Mr. Marek. Skoda Auto is preparing for this in earnest: "We're going to increase the share of electric vehicles to 70% of production by 2030, with nearly €5.6 billion of investment over the next five years," said the company.
But the country will have to deal with another major obstacle: the dizzying lack of labor. Despite the economic downturn, the unemployment rate was only 2.1% in October, according to Eurostat. "Companies are struggling to recruit for all types of labor, skilled and unskilled, and this is a real obstacle to innovation," concluded Mr. Marek.
G.O.P. Fight Over Speaker Enters Its Second Day
The House is set to reconvene at noon to continue a historic floor fight — the first in a century — prompted by the Republican leader’s failure to secure a majority to become speaker.
NYT
Jan. 4, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Republicans began their second day in control of the House on Wednesday without a leader and deadlocked about how to move forward, after Representative Kevin McCarthy of California lost three votes for the top job amid a hard-right rebellion that has prompted a historic struggle on the House floor.
Mr. McCarthy’s successive defeats on Tuesday marked the first time in a century that the House has failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote, and it was not clear how or when the stalemate would be resolved. After adjourning with no leader, the House was set to reconvene at noon on Wednesday to try to resolve the impasse.
A mutiny waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who for weeks have held fast to their vow to oppose Mr. McCarthy paralyzed the chamber on the first day of Republican rule, delaying the swearing in of hundreds of members of Congress, putting off any legislative work and exposing deep divisions that threatened to make the party’s House majority ungovernable.
Mr. McCarthy has vowed not to back down until he secures the post, raising the prospect of a grueling stretch of votes that could go on for days.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
“I’m staying until we win,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters between the second and third votes on Tuesday. “I know the path.”
House precedent dictates that members continue to vote until someone secures the majority needed to prevail. But until Tuesday, the House had not failed to elect a speaker on the first roll call vote since 1923, when the election stretched for nine ballots.
It was not clear how long it might take for Republicans to resolve their stalemate this time, or what Mr. McCarthy’s strategy, if any, was for coming back from an embarrassing series of defeats. He worked into the night on Tuesday, surrounded by allies, to try to secure votes.
No viable challenger has emerged, but if Mr. McCarthy continues to flounder, Republicans could shift their votes to an alternative, such as his No. 2, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
On Tuesday, right-wing Republicans coalesced behind Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, as an alternative to Mr. McCarthy, but Mr. Jordan, a onetime rival who has since allied himself with Mr. McCarthy, pleaded with his colleagues to unite instead behind the California Republican.
But the party has so far refused to do so. The failed votes on Tuesday showed publicly the extent of the opposition Mr. McCarthy faces. With all members of the House present and voting, Mr. McCarthy needs to receive 218 votes to become speaker, leaving little room for Republican defections since the party controls only 222 seats.
He fell short again and again, drawing no more than 203 votes — far below a majority and fewer than the votes received by Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader whose caucus remained united behind him.