Spain Ratifies Global Climate Change Agreement

Spain Ratifies Global Climate Change Agreement

Spain has joined the USA, China, India, Australia, and other large EU nations in ratifying the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The agreement was initially drawn up last December in the COP21 conference.

Climate change is needed everywhere for our planet to survive

Spain will look to follow the terms of the Paris Agreement and come up with ways to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius before the end of the century. Scientists have agreed that carbon emissions must be cut by up to 50% in most nations to prevent the global temperature from rising to above 2 degrees Celsius; which is considered to be the point of no return for global warming.

The Spanish Environment Minister Isabel Garcia Tejerina last week revealed that they will ratify the details of the agreement as soon as possible. Many people welcomed the news as the future of the Paris Agreement was unknown following Donald Trump being elected as the next US president.

While Barack Obama pushed the American ratification of the Agreement through earlier in the year Donald Trump, who is against the idea of climate change, has threatened to rip it up.

The USA are in for now though, along with China, Germany, the UK and India; some of the biggest polluters in the world. Spain have also now joined in.

Tejerna spoke at the COP22 meeting in Morocco where she said that ratifying the agreement means that Spain will be able to take part in deciding the measures of the agreement. She said that the change had reached the point where no corporation or government could stop it, and that we would have to see how the new American administration will react.

There was one time when Spain was the global leader in renewable energy. There was a time when power from wind and solar energy accounted for 15% of the power in the nation. Since 2011 things have gone a little backwards however. Spain has since scrapped the generous subsidies that made it easy and profitable for people to install solar panels, and now there is even a controversial “sun tax”; which is when people are charged to return their solar power to the national grid.

It’s expected that this ruling could be rescinded in the new government though. Solar power is becoming cheaper to install and will only continue to get cheaper, so there is little to no need for government support.

Whitehall Blocks Expat Voting Rights Change to Maintain 15-Year Rule

Whitehall Blocks Expat Voting Rights Change to Maintain 15-Year Rule.

Its a sad state of affairs that Britain continues to keep outdated laws 

Long-term British expats living in Spain and all over Europe who are hoping to be able to vote in British general elections will no doubt be disappointed by the decision Whitehall took to reject the proposed changes to the 15-Year Law. David Cameron promised to get rid of the controversial 15-Year Rule that said expats who had lived outside of the country for over 15 years could no longer vote in general elections. It seems like his promise has been overturned by the new government that replaced the former Prime Minister.

Whitehall ministers have said they feel that changing the law would be too complex and will instead be maintaining the status quo now that David Cameron, who pledged to change the rule as part of his 2015 election manifesto, is no longer in charge. The change was also intended to enable those expats to vote in the EU Referendum. With that in the rear-view mirror politicians see the rule as less of an issue now.

Cameron made the promise when he called out for long-term expats to vote for him and his Conservative Party during the last general election. The promise went on the backburner after Cameron secured his second term. Instead Cameron chose to make his promise of an EU Referendum a priority.

The irony of this choice is that if Cameron HAD changed the law before the Referendum then he could still very well be in power and the UK would likely still be part of the EU as those expats would most likely have voted, and voted in their droves, to stay in the EU.

The Daily Mail is reporting that the issue is once again being put on the shelf now that Cameron has gone and the UK is attempting to avoid the Brexit and it seems the wave of brits wanting to move to places like spain is even on the up!  Geoffrey Clinton-Brown, one of the campaigners who hoped to change the law, believes that civil servants dislike the idea of difficult changes. Whitehall say that one of the difficulties in changing the rules is that electoral registers are only kept for 15 years. As such it would become difficult to find out which constituency these long-term expats used to live in. Cliff-Brown believes that this just an excuse to stall the issue.

The U-turn is actual a contradiction of the Tory party line they’ve been touting for over two years. The former Party chairman Grant Shapps said that British citizens are Brits for life. They will always have the right to be protected by the military and travel on a British passport and that the Tory party believes it should also give them the lifelong right to vote.

The Daily Mail is also reporting that a former Foreign Office Minister has now admitted that making the change would be more complex than it was first thought it would be. This difficulty, combined with the lack of political will by the government, has left many expats unable to vote with no change in sight.

The Commons Leader David Lidington says that the matter is more complex than it appears. The change would mean having to create a new system of voter registration which is difficult because of the lack of voter registers from over 15 years ago. The government would need to find a way to allocate people to constituencies and then prove that they lived where they say they did.

Clifton-Brown is refusing to accept any of their excuses. He says that it shouldn’t be too difficult for people to provide some evidence that they used to I've where they say they did. There are many ways to do this including doctor’s notes, passport numbers, and National Insurance notes. He believes any of these can, and should, be used as proof of address.

One thing is for sure, Brits will still keep moving out of the UK to southern Europe regardless whether they can vote or not as the healthier lifestyle and the cost of living in places like spain coupled with the amazing 320 days of sunshine will always temp people away from the wet and dismal uk.