... Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on Thursday endorsed a recommendation for the U.K. to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 57 percent between 2028 and 2032. The government’s official climate adviser said current policies only deliver about 53 percent of the reductions needed, and the vote to leave the European Union will further complicate environmental policies.

The recommendation in an annual progress report by the Committee on Climate Change indicates the tough decisions Prime Minister David Cameron’s successor faces. Britain already has cut emissions 38 percent from the 1990 baseline used in the calculations, leaving environmental groups seeking deeper cuts in greenhouse gases increasingly at odds with industry and consumers who are demanding cheaper power. The vote on the EU adds another dimension.

“Leaving the EU will require the reassessment of some existing and proposed policies but does not change the need for the U.K. to play its role in reducing emissions,” said John Gummer, the chairman of the committee, who is also known as Lord Deben since his elevation to the upper chamber of Parliament.

The committee was established by the government to advise ministers on policy and will produce a detailed analysis on the impact of the vote to leave the EU in the autumn. That decision may lead to the scrapping or weakening of some Brussels-led green policies, such as new car emissions standards, the EU Emissions Trading System and laws on waste and harmful fluorinated gases, the committee said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-30/u-k-told-to-double-scale-of-pollution-cuts-to-meet-climate-goal

Here comes Boris Johnson, half an hour before deadline closes. He’s going to chuck his hat in the ring like Blackadder’s Lord Flashheart, isn’t he? “I’ve got a plan, and it’s as hot as my pants!”

Except he isn’t. Standing at a podium bearing not a soaring campaign slogan, but the rather more prosaic “ST ERMIN’S HOTEL”, the leading political bounder of the age announced that he had thought about the individual needed to take the country out of the mess he’s dumped it in (I paraphrase), and “concluded that person cannot be me”.

Where did it all go right? Normally Johnson is so smart he doesn’t even fly by the seat of his own pants. Unfortunately for him, his wingman recently decided he isn’t willing to offer up his undergarments any longer. Michael Gove, fresh from destroying his friend David Cameron, is going for the accumulator by announcing his surprise Tory leadership bid. As Gove put it this morning: “I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.” It sounds like a tragic conflict of disloyalties, with which Gove has wrestled for perhaps 24 hours...

... Even so, and however inevitable it might feel after some reflection, this was a shock. We did know a schism might be on the House of Cards, as it were, thanks to yesterday’s accidentally leaked email from Gove’s wife Sarah Vine. Think of her as Claire Blunderwood. The pisser for Boris is that he now can’t even contemplate having Michael beaten up, like he did that troublesome little journalist back in the day, because many people have one eye on the news at the mo and would probably notice...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/30/boris-johnson-michael-gove-london

3. The Parties further recognise that it is inappropriate to establish or use their environmental laws or other measures in a manner which would constitute a disguised restriction on trade or investment between the Parties.

On October 5, 2015, the White House issued a statement by the President on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement claiming that the TPP “includes the strongest commitments on labor and the environment of any trade agreement in history, and those commitments are enforceable, unlike in past agreements.” This claim itself is unremarkable since proponents of almost every U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) formed in the past two decades have similarly promised meaningful and enforceable labor and environmental safeguards. Yet the reality of past U.S. FTA enforcement and the provisions included in the TPP suggest that this agreement, like those before it, will not guarantee environmental protection...

The Popular Party (PP) has achieved a clear victory in the Sunday elections, improving its results even in traditional Socialist strongholds like Andalusia.

But the fact that the conservatives fell short of the 176 seats required for a parliamentary majority, in a highly polarized environment that is not conducive to dealmaking, means that governing coalitions will be hard to come by...

... Against all forecasts, the Socialist Party (PSOE) has managed to hold on to its second spot although it loses five seats (85 against 90), while the leftist alliance of Unidos Podemos has lost a million votes even if it gained two seats from December (71 against 69).

The biggest loser of the night was Ciudadanos, which dropped from 40 to 32 seats after voters heeded the message of fear issued by acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who said moderate voters had to band together to stop Podemos from reaching government...

http://elpais.com/elpais/2016/06/27/inenglish/1467012828_937419.html

Neoliberalism
Political and social science
Written by Nicola Smith
Last Updated 3-23-2016

neoliberalism, ideology and policy model that emphasizes the value of free market competition.
Although there is considerable debate as to the defining features of neoliberal thought and practice, it is most commonly associated with laissez-faire economics. In particular, neoliberalism is often characterized in terms of its belief in sustained economic growth as the means to achieve human progress, its confidence in free markets as the most-efficient allocation of resources, its emphasis on minimal state intervention in economic and social affairs, and its commitment to the freedom of trade and capital...

http://global.britannica.com/topic/neoliberalism

Laissez-faire
Economics
Written by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica

laissez-faire, (French: “allow to do”), policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society...

... Laissez-faire was a political as well as an economic doctrine. The pervading theory of the 19th century was that the individual, pursuing his own desired ends, would thereby achieve the best results for the society of which he was a part. The function of the state was to maintain order and security and to avoid interference with the initiative of the individual in pursuit of his own desired goals. But laissez-faire advocates nonetheless argued that government had an essential role in enforcing contracts as well as ensuring civil order.

The philosophy’s popularity reached its peak around 1870. In the late 19th century the acute changes caused by industrial growth and the adoption of mass-production techniques proved the laissez-faire doctrine insufficient as a guiding philosophy...

http://global.britannica.com/topic/laissez-faire