EUROPE – Subsidies designed to promote the use of renewable energy are adding significantly to the costs of various industries, including food packaging.

That is the view of the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC). In response to a conference held to promote green energy as a way of reducing world poverty and the impact of climate change, it said renewable energies could only contribute to the energy problem when constant subsidy was not necessary.

The UK’s The Financial Times newspaper reported that Germany’s environment minister J