Month: December 2020

Dirty and dangerous

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The protest by the labour leaders and human rights activists last month has brought to light, once again, the miserable working and living conditions the workers are braced to at Gadani shipbreaking yards. On the 1st of November every year they mark the tragic accident occurred on that day in 2016, termed as the worst disaster in the history of global shipbreaking. An oil tanker, known as the Floating Production, Storage and Off-loading (FPSO) Tanker named ACES had caught fire during shipbreaking, which killed 33 workers and injured another 54,…

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China again bails out Pakistan to pay Saudi debt

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ISLAMABAD: China has again bailed out Pakistan as it agrees to immediately provide $1.5 billion financing line to repay the $2 billion Saudi Arabia debt, sources told The Express Tribune. Out of $2 billion, Pakistan is now set to return the $1 billion on coming Monday, said the sources in the finance ministry and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The remaining $1 billion is due in January, they added. However, this time around, China has not given the loan from its State Administration of Foreign Exchange, commonly known as…

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$226 Billion Pension Fund Considers Dumping Oil & Gas Investments

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The $226-billion New York State Common Retirement Fund is undertaking a review of all energy companies it is invested in, to assess their readiness for the energy transition and dump those considered riskiest in climate-related investment. As it pledged on Wednesday to transition its portfolio of holdings to one with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, the pension fund—the third-largest in the U.S. after CalPERS and CalSTRS of California—said that it would complete by 2025 a review of all its holdings in energy companies to assess “their future ability to…

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Pakistan won’t approve new coal power plants

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Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, announced over the weekend that as part of a number of efforts to counteract the effects of climate change, his administration will not approve new coal-fired power generation projects. “We have already scrapped two coal power projects which were supposed to produce 2,600 megawatts of energy. [We have] replaced them with hydroelectricity,” Khan said during his address at the Climate Ambition Summit 2020, which was hosted virtually by the United Nations, the United Kingdom, France, Chile and Italy. Khan also talked about ‘indigenous coal’ and said that his…

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Powering dream of EV revolution

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KARACHI: The atmosphere was electrified in the headquarters of Tesla on the battery day held on September 22 as expectations were high that perhaps their charismatic CEO Elon Musk had found a secret recipe to make cheaper, reliable and safest batteries. So far, the company’s stock has surged 10 times in a span of just one year and is now trading at $600 after split with price-to-earnings ratio of 1,280. (Yes, there is no typo). However, what we learnt in the event broadcast live were lots of futuristic plans ranging…

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