European Union negotiators reached a political deal on Sunday to overhaul the bloc’s carbon market, cutting planet-heating emissions faster and imposing new CO2 costs on fuels used in road transport and buildings from 2027.
The EU carbon market requires around 10,000 power plants and factories to buy CO2 permits when they pollute — a system central to meeting the EU’s target to cut its net emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.
Under the deal agreed upon by negotiators from EU countries and the European Parliament, the EU carbon market will be reformed to cut emissions by 62 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030. The plan involves removing 90 million CO2 permits from the system in 2024, 27 million in 2026 and cutting the rate at which the cap on CO2 permits in the system falls by up to 4.3 per cent from 2024-2027 and 4.4 per cent from 2028-30.
From 2026-34, the EU will phase out the free CO2 permits it currently gives industries to protect them from foreign competition. Those permits will be wound down as the EU phases in a carbon border tariff designed to prevent domestic firms from being undercut by overseas competitors.
Spinach hallucination
Delirium. Fever. Hallucinations. Not what you expect when adding baby spinach to a salad, but these are among the alarming symptoms dozens of Australians have experienced after consuming what are thought to be contaminated batches of the leafy greens.
More than 100 people reported symptoms, including at least 54 who have sought medical help, after eating baby spinach which authorities believe to be tainted. Four major supermarket chains have recalled products containing the suspect spinach.
Authorities said that the spinach had caused “possible food-related toxic reactions” with those affected suffering symptoms including delirium, hallucinations, blurred vision, rapid heartbeat and fever.
Its producer, Riviera Farms in the state of Victoria, said it believed its product had been “contaminated with a weed”. The health department of the state of Victoria has said that the symptoms suggested “anticholinergic syndrome”, a type of poisoning mainly caused by plants in the Solanaceae family. (New York Times News Service)
