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U.K. Government Split Over Carbon Market After Brexit

U.K. Government Split Over Carbon Market After Brexit

(Bloomberg) —



a man wearing a suit and tie: Rishi Sunak

© Bloomberg
Rishi Sunak

U.K. Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Treasury is locked in a battle with Alok Sharma’s Business Department over how to ensure polluters pay for their emissions after Brexit.

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The Treasury is pushing to replace the European Union’s cap-and-trade system with an economy-wide carbon tax, which would come into effect after Britain exits the bloc in January. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is drawing up a new emissions-trading system to start in January similar to the EU program that the U.K. currently participates in.

One person familiar with the debate predicted that an ETS was a likely option, and a hybrid is also being considered. A decision is expected soon. It is likely to be announced by Dec. 12, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson will co-host a United Nations meeting on climate action, where he is expected to reveal a new 2030 climate pledge and encourage other countries to set their own goals to bring net emissions to zero.

But with just a little over two months to go before the U.K. leaves the EU and no deal agreed, businesses and traders are becoming increasingly concerned over the lack of certainty for how they’ll be charged for their pollution and whether the U.K system will be linked to the EU’s ETS.

“We’re really running tight on time if they want to implement an ETS,” said Jahn Olsen, analyst for BloombergNEF. “A tax has a lot of obvious disadvantages.”

The U.K. is still negotiating to find a way that could tie a U.K. cap-and-trade system to the EU ETS — if it does opt for that system. But if no deal can be struck, BEIS officials say a standalone U.K. ETS would be just as effective. The EU ETS is the world’s biggest

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Nearly three times more COVID deaths in Mississippi’s for-profit nursing homes, analysis shows | State Government

Nearly three times more COVID deaths in Mississippi’s for-profit nursing homes, analysis shows | State Government

Twice as many residents caught COVID-19 at Mississippi’s for-profit nursing homes, and nearly three times more died there, an analysis of health data by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting shows.

The average number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in these for-profit homes? Four in 10 residents.

One possible factor: 80% of Mississippi’s nursing homes had already been cited for infection-control problems before the pandemic hit.

Charlene Harrington, a professor emeritus at the University of California at San Francisco who discovered similar results in a just-released study of nursing homes in California, said the current pandemic is exposing problems that have persisted for decades. “We’ve just looked the other way for 30 years,” she said.

OSHA has been investigating three nursing homes in Mississippi, all of them for-profit, for workplace catastrophes or fatalities, including Lakeside Health & Rehabilitation Center in Quitman. One of the home’s nursing assistants, Carole Faye Doby of Stonewall, died of COVID May 15, and two residents also died of the disease.

A week or more before she contracted the coronavirus, Doby warned her family that “things were getting bad at the nursing home, and that we didn’t need to come around,” recalled her daughter, Shenika Jackson of Clinton.

She said her mother shared that a fellow worker and a resident (who later died) had both come down with the disease.

On May 6, Doby was tested for COVID. Days later, they saw her on Mother’s Day, Jackson said. “We did see her on Sunday, Mother’s Day. We sat outside the porch and ate lunch. She was inside the window.”

By May 11, her mother still didn’t have results and continued to get sicker so she saw a doctor, who had her rushed to the hospital by ambulance, Jackson said.

Because of COVID, she couldn’t visit with her

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Government insurance for hurricanes and floods going broke

Government insurance for hurricanes and floods going broke

Real estate is the most valuable asset most people will ever possess, and insuring against natural disasters like floods and storms is common sense.

Or so you might think. Two government-mandated programs are in financial straits, with critics asking if they should exist at all.

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association is still kicking the financial can down the road to avoid raising rates because coastal property owners do not want to pay their fair share. Meanwhile, San Antonio-area homeowners are allowing their federal flood insurance to lapse as memories of past floods fade.

When disaster strikes—and we know it will—taxpayers will be left picking up the tab for others’ foolish decisions.

TOMLINSON’S TAKE: Unscrupulous developers will strike back against flood measures

The windstorm association, a quasi-government entity known as TWIA (TWEE-ah), provides coverage to more than 190,000 properties in 15 coastal counties that no private company will insure. That includes 57,433 properties in Galveston, 36,691 in Nueces, 29,524 in Brazoria and 24,311 in Jefferson.

TWIA requires property insurers to contribute to the association to lower the costs for high-risk property owners. But the Legislature also requires the owners to pay their fair share, and lately, they have been getting a considerable discount.

Hurricane Harvey and other storms have drained TWIA’s cash reserves, and the growing severity of hurricanes means premiums need to go up. In December, TWIA’s actuaries determined that TWIA needed to raise premiums 44 percent on residences and 49 percent on businesses.

TWIA’s staff recommended the board begin by raising rates just 5 percent to put the insurer on the path to solvency. But property owners reacted as if TWIA planned to evacuate the Texas coast permanently.

State Rep. Todd Hunter led an angry crowd into the Dec. 10 board meeting in Corpus Christi. They demanded an independent

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Third-Quarter 2020 Market Commentary: Despite Uncertainty Around U.S. Election And Hard Brexit, Hope Springs Eternal For COVID-19 Vaccine And Government Relief

Third-Quarter 2020 Market Commentary: Despite Uncertainty Around U.S. Election And Hard Brexit, Hope Springs Eternal For COVID-19 Vaccine And Government Relief

Data Source: Bloomberg

Source: PxHere

3D Note: As part of our ongoing commentary concerning the coronavirus global contagion and its impact on human and global markets, we remind readers that the situation remains fluid as evidenced by volatile market reactions to most new developments, although the pace of these reactions seems to have slowed down from March/April. In addition to our bi-monthly articles and periodic podcasts, 3D has started publishing mid-month updates to our advisor partners as we navigate through the coronavirus pandemic. Please contact us if you would like to be added to the distribution list.

Market action during the third quarter was largely uneventful despite a moderate pickup in volatility and a “pause” in the global reflation trade. The first two months saw rallies in the global reflation trade, broadly represented by growth technology stocks, emerging markets, commodities/non-U.S. currencies, and corporate credit, only to see investors back away from this trade in September due to technical reasons (e.g. over-exposed long positioning in large-cap technology stocks via call option purchases and speculative non-commercial long positioning in EUR/USD) and diminishing prospects over a second U.S. pandemic relief spending program as well as rising prospects over Hard Brexit. The end of the quarter saw elevated (i.e. buy-the-dip) risk sentiment after having peaked in mid-August, prior to the early September sell-off (we wrote about this in peak in investor sentiment in mid-August titled “Market is Euphoric”).

The furious global technology growth rally that characterized the early quarter advance spilled over into the first week of September before the “trade” unwound itself following reports of a large options “whale” (later to be revealed Softbank – Japan’s publicly-traded venture capital fund) having bid up single stock call options on key technology stocks, forcing options market-makers to buy the underlying stocks in order to

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Canadian government sees consumer-directed finance as part of the future of financial services

Canadian government sees consumer-directed finance as part of the future of financial services

iStockPhoto / Getty Images

After consulting financial system stakeholders, consumers and business organizations, the Canadian government recently announced plans to develop a framework for consumer-directed finance (or open banking).

Ahead of further consultations, the government has revealed some principles it considers important for such a framework.

Excerpts from the Report of the Advisory Committee on Open Banking, 2020

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The committee heard that, with the strength of its financial services sector, ambitious innovators and top talent, Canada has the potential to be a leader in the development of consumer-directed finance – but that it risks falling behind if it does not take timely and concrete action.

Consumer-directed finance could deliver tools that would support Canadians in improving their financial outcomes.

While there are risks – principally those related to consumer protection, privacy and cybersecurity – the committee found that these risks exist in the current unstructured environment, and implementation of a structured framework could serve to better address and manage them.

The committee heard broad-based agreement from stakeholders that the development of a consumer-directed finance framework, with appropriate safeguards, established in collaboration with industry and government, would more effectively deliver benefits to Canadians and mitigate risks involved in data sharing.

www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/consultations/2019/open-banking/report.html

Produced by Randall Anthony Communications. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved in its creation.

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