Category: Economy

There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are wholly centrally owned. ..reports Asian Lite News

The Post Office is expected to announce the closure of dozens of branches and cut up to 1,000 head office jobs as it seeks to reduce costs to secure its financial future. 

There are about 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 115 are wholly centrally owned. The rest are operated by independent post office operators under contract and partners such as WH Smith and Tesco. 

The Post Office is seeking to shut or refranchise most of its wholly owned network, known as crown post offices, affecting as many as 1,000 jobs. It has been reducing the number of crown post offices for a number of years. There were almost 400 in 2012. 

In addition, the company is seeking to cut as many as 1,000 jobs from its head office. It also intends to unveil enhanced remuneration terms for the franchisees who run 9,000 post office branches independently. 

Nigel Railton, the chair of the Post Office, is expected to announce the measures on Wednesday as part of a strategic review that he instigated in June. 

A Post Office spokesperson said: “Tomorrow we will set out a ‘New Deal’ for postmasters and the future of the Post Office as an organisation. It will dramatically increase postmasters’ share of revenues, strengthen our branch network and make it work better for local communities, independent postmasters and our partners who own and operate branches.” 

Last week the former postal minister Kevin Hollinrake criticised the outgoing Post Office chief executive, Nick Read, for failing to take cost-cutting action in its central operations. 

“I was extremely frustrated by the Post Office’s inability to provide this basic information,” Hollinrake told the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal. “A particular example of this is [Read’s] inability or unwillingness to reduce central costs. It was like drawing teeth.” 

He said the failure to make cuts was a “failure of leadership”, and added there were 143 employees at the Post Office earning £100,000 or more. 

This week the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, expressed his support for the long-term future of the Post Office under a new model of governance that would include post office branch operators. 

“I think despite the scale of this scandal, the Post Office is still an incredibly important institution in national life,” he said. “As an institution, as a brand, there is still tremendous affection and desire for the Post Office to have a strong future. I don’t think subpostmasters make significant enough remuneration from what the public requires from the Post Office.” 

While Reynolds was open to options such as mutualisation, he said the “structure of the business model has to change to be sustainable”. He pointed out that the Post Office required a large annual taxpayer subsidy and the underwriting of various liabilities such as compensation schemes and the ballooning cost of a replacement for Horizon. Sky News first reported the potential branch closures and job cuts.

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The militant group confirmed on Sunday that it will be sending delegates to the UN-led conference for the first time since their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021…reports Asian Lite News

Keir Starmer has “no plans” to meet with the Taliban during the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, Downing Street said. 

The militant group confirmed on Sunday that it will be sending delegates to the UN-led conference for the first time since their takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, which took place as the US, UK, and their allies retreated from the country. 

Asked what the prime minister thought of that, and whether he would come face to face with its leaders, a Number 10 spokeswoman said: “No plans to meet with them.” 

She said that attendance was “a matter for the organisers”, adding: “More broadly the summit I think is bringing together 96 different delegations from across the world and the objective is obviously to strengthen global climate action and engagement on that issue. It is obviously vital that we approach the talks and the event with that common purpose (at the) forefront of our mind.” 

COP summits are the world’s most important meetings on climate change and this year’s event, the 29th COP (Conference of the Parties), is taking place in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku. 

While Starmer is heading there, the US and Chinese presidents are not attending the talks. Several G7 leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the EU president Ursula von der Leyen, have also confirmed they will not be attending. 

Afghanistan is one of the world’s most affected nations, with flash flooding killing over 300 people in March this year. Matuil Haq Khalis, who is head of the country’s environment protection agency, told The Associated Press that Afghanistan needs the world’s support to deal with its extreme weather, including erratic rainfall and prolonged droughts. 

He added that the Afghan delegation was grateful to the Azerbaijan government for inviting them to the climate talks. 

They will only have an observer status, as the group’s government is not formally recognised by the UN and the international community due to its restrictions on the basic rights of citizens, particularly women. The talks today begin amid a warning from the UN that the world is on track for a “catastrophic” 3.1C of warming. 

However, with many leaders choosing not to attend the opening summit, and oil and gas-rich Azerbaijan hosting, it is unclear how much progress will be made on key issues, including emissions cuts and phasing out fossil fuels. 

Countries will also be grappling with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, in what analysts say is a trend of climate scepticism in elections this year. The president-elect is expected to boost fossil fuels, roll back green incentives domestically and take America out – again – of the global Paris Agreement on tackling climate change, which commits countries to pursue efforts to curb warming to 1.5C. 

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The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee…reports Asian Lite News

Keir Starmer will announce a stringent new climate goal for the UK on Tuesday, the Guardian can reveal, with a target in line with the advice given to the government by its scientists and independent advisers. 

The UK will pledge to cut emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035, a target in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. 

The goal will be one of the first national plans on cutting carbon, known as “nationally determined contributions” or NDCs in UN jargon, to be unveiled at Cop29, the crucial UN climate summit taking place in Azerbaijan this week, and is expected to be one of the most ambitious of any government at the talks. 

The goal would be achieved by decarbonising the power sector and through a massive expansion of offshore wind, as well as through investments in carbon capture and storage and nuclear energy. 

The UK is one of the first countries to announce an NDC, which are not due until February next year. Campaigners have found the NDCs submitted so far “underwhelming”. The NDC submitted by the previous Cop host, the United Arab Emirates, was described as “greenwashing” by 350.org. A submission by the next host, Brazil, was also criticised for being insufficient and called “misaligned” by Climate Observatory. 

Friends of the Earth’s head of campaigns, Rosie Downes, said: “With the warning signals flashing red, a planet battered by increasingly severe floods, storms and heatwaves, and the election of climate denier President Trump, the need for climate leadership by the UK has never been more urgent. Starmer’s 2035 carbon-reduction pledge is a step in the right direction but must be seen as a floor to the level of ambition, not a ceiling. Deeper, faster cuts are needed to help avert the climate collision course we are on. 

“Furthermore, if these targets are to be credible, they must be backed by a clear plan to ensure they are met. The UK’s existing 2030 commitment is currently way off course.” 

On Monday, the World Meteorological Organization followed the EU space programme in saying 2024 was on track to become the hottest year on record. 

Few big countries have yet come up with NDCs. The Cop29 talks opened on Monday, but will ratchet up a gear on Tuesday when scores of heads of state and government fly in from around the world. 

Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey and Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, are among the other leaders attending. Joe Biden of the US, Xi Jinping of China, Olaf Scholz of Germany and Emmanuel Macron of France will not be at the talks, with the latter two preoccupied by domestic political crises. 

On Monday, delegates heard stark warnings from the UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, and the Cop president and Azerbaijani environment minister, Mukhtar Babayev, urging countries to step up with strong commitments on the climate before it is too late. 

This summit, at which nearly 200 countries are expected to be represented, will focus on climate finance – ways of getting poor countries access to the money they need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather. 

About $1tn (£780bn) is expected to be needed each year by 2035, but developed countries have agreed to ensure only $100bn a year from public funds. 

The host country claimed an early win in the talks by signing off on a deal intended to make carbon offsets work for the planet, and as a source of cash for poor countries. 

Diplomats have given the green light to rules that govern the trade of “carbon credits”, breaking a deadlock that has lasted years and paving the way for rich countries to pay for cheap climate action abroad while delaying expensive emission cuts at home. But critics warned the rules were rushed through without following proper process. 

Carbon offsets, or carbon credits, are awarded to countries with large forests that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as wind or solar farms. Selling them should be a source of cash for the developing world, but years of argument over how exactly such a system would work have prevented the widespread uptake of trading systems. 

The beginnings of a potential system for trading were set out in article 6 of the Paris climate agreement in 2015, but countries have struggled to put the idea into practice, owing to disagreements over technical issues, such as how to avoid double counting, and ideological differences, as some countries are wary of using carbon offsets. 

Azerbaijan hopes the progress on article 6 will clear the way for more substantive talks, for the rest of the scheduled fortnight, on a goal of making $1tn a year in climate finance available to poorer countries by 2035. 

However, many civil society groups remain concerned about article 6. Erika Lennon, an attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said: “We’ve seen over and over again how carbon markets are not doing what they claim to be doing, as well as market projects that violate people’s rights. If they don’t have strong rules in place to prevent all of the abuses, it can totally undermine the integrity of the Paris agreement.” 

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