Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“After another summer of heatwaves and wildfires, Spain is petitioning the EU to create a climate adaptation fund. In a letter sent to the EU’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the Spanish minister for the ecological transition Sara Aagesen Muñoz said that Europe needs a blanket strategy to help its member states cope with climate change, and to mobilize the ‘resources needed to deliver the necessary investments.’ The mobilizing strategy favored by Muñoz is a permanent windfall tax on energy companies, many of which have cashed in on higher gas and oil prices resulting from the wars in Ukraine and Iran. … The fairness of windfall taxes, of course, is one of the most questionable things about them. As the Portuguese finance ministry said when introducing its windfall levy, the elevated profits of oil and gas providers this year have resulted ‘solely from external market conditions.’ So why punish them?” (09/11/26)