18 Jan Money talks #2
MoneyTalks is a new project started by the MoneyFEST Committee. Every week we will highlight the most important and relevant economic news, both national and international. We hope that the following article will help you understand and discover events you were not aware of, or deepen your understanding of already known topics.
New EU Green Laws to tackle climate change
Climate change has become one of the biggest supervillains of the 21st century and in order to stop it, a multitude of laws have been passed and continue to be passed. Yet, it seems that we are still facing a big problem; if the world is to reach 0 net emissions by 2050, investing in the green transition of the world will need to more than double.
To the rescue has come the European Union, who’s council just cleared new taxonomy rules for climate implementation. The taxonomy is a system which classifies economical activities into what the EU deems to be environmentally sustainable. The idea behind this is to encourage the transparency of firms and funds as to what share of their activities qualify as “green”, which would then encourage investors to, you guessed it, invest. This is all well and good, but one might ask themselves: is this enough? Will this actually help tackle climate change? Or is this just another hopeless attempt to avoid the inevitable? (Petra Simpalean)
Minimum Wage increases in Romania starting with 2022
The minimum gross wage increased from 2,300 lei to 2,550 lei per month, representing a 10,9% rise compared to last year. This is a very significant change especially because, in 2021, more than a million Romanians were paid the minimum wage. What is also significant is the fact that employees with a higher education will no longer receive a differentiated guaranteed minimum wage. This however, will not be applied to construction workers, who will continue to have a bigger guaranteed minimum wage.
In Romania, the minimum wage depends on many factors: the inflation rate, value of economic growth, labour productivity, value of average gross earnings; however, in the future, the minimum wage may be calculated by the same criteria and factors in all the EU states. (Maria Rondolean)
How extreme rainfall affects the economy
A new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany analysed 40 years of data from more than 1,500 regions in 77 countries and revealed the serious impact that rainfall has on our economy. Climate change, caused by the emission of greenhouse gases, has led to a daily increase in extreme rainfall and floods. This can heavily affect economies by destroying infrastructures or disrupting production and the supply chain. Leonie Wenz, who led the study, noted that: “While more annual rainfall is generally good for economies, especially agriculturally dependent ones, the question is also how the rain is distributed across the days of the year. Intensified daily rainfall turns out to be bad, especially for wealthy, industrialized countries like the US, Japan, or Germany.” (Beatrice Isaila)
AUTHORS: Students from MoneyFEST Committee
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