13/03/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC), Chair of PACE Environment Committee, and Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE) will attend the 5th World Water Forum to be held by the World Water Council and the Turkish authorities in Istanbul from 16 to 22 March 2009. As part of the parliamentary contribution to the forum political process, Mr Meale will chair a Session on global change and risk management, on behalf of parliamentarians from the European region on 18 March. Mr Meale and Mr Marquet will also take part on 17 March in a round table on water mediators.
11/03/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
According to a report of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Committee on Social Affairs discussed in Paris today, an ever-increasing number of imprisoned women do not need to be in prison at all. Most are charged with minor and non-violent offences, many are imprisoned due to their inability to pay fines, a large proportion is in need of treatment for mental disabilities or substance addiction rather than isolation from society, the report explains.
18/12/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Council of Europe has a unique opportunity to take up a global challenge, not its usual vocation of maintaining peace, but that of getting humankind to refocus on its environment, according to John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC), speaking during a Paris meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly’s Environment Committee. “Throughout the 20th century, human beings have served the economy, but in the 21st, it is the economy’s to serve human beings and the environment,” he said. Mr Prescott proposed that a parliamentary debate be held in 2009 to help generate a political consensus on a fair way of distributing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.
18/12/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
In a draft recommendation adopted today, the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs calls for a genuine policy to be devised in member states for preventing chronic diseases associated with environmental pollution – including pollution in the home – and for environmental medicine to be recognised as a new medical discipline.
18/12/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“The large-scale production of plants such as wheat, maize or sugar cane to manufacture agrofuels is not a miracle solution to cope with the alarming reduction in fossil energy. On the contrary, it might even, as has happened in South America, cause a major price increase in agricultural products for human consumption, thus jeopardising access to food,” declared Nigel Evans (United Kingdom, EDG), member of the Committee on the Environment, who wrote a report on “Growing food and fuel.”
05/12/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"More and more scientific studies are proving the links between certain pollutants and certain illnesses, such as allergies, respiratory problems, fertility problems or central nervous system disorders," said Jean Huss (Luxembourg, SOC), rapporteur of PACE's Environment Committee, at the opening of a conference on the effects of a polluted environment on health, including pollution in our own homes.
28/11/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Committee on the Environment is to hold a conference in Strasbourg (Palais de l’Europe, Room 1) on 5 December on "Environment and Health - Indoor Pollution and Multi System Illnesses". The conference, which is open to the press, will allow scientific and medical experts to express their views on the effects of a polluted environment on health. The discussions will provide material for a report by Jean Huss (Luxembourg, SOC) on “Environment and health: better prevention of environment-related health hazards”.
27/11/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The disastrous impact of the financial crisis on the living conditions of Europe’s citizens “could possibly threaten to undermine the very foundations of democracy”, PACE Economic Affairs Committee has warned. In a statement adopted yesterday in Paris, the committee also said public authorities had “failed in their duty” to adequately supervise the sophisticated financial instruments which partly led to the financial crisis.
07/11/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
To what extent can nuclear power help meet energy needs and reconcile them with the demands of sustainable development? Can it be combined with the development of renewable energy sources and CO2-free technologies? These were all questions which representatives of the nuclear industry, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and civil society tried to find answers to at a hearing held in Strasbourg today. This debate between supporters and opponents of nuclear power gave the members of PACE Committee on the Environment statistically-based insights into the subject, on which views diverge widely, and provided Bill Etherington (United Kingdom, SOC) with material for the preparation of his report on “nuclear energy and sustainable development”.
06/11/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Proper water governance that offers sustainable access to water and sanitation is not possible without legislation. In this connection, parliamentarians have a key role to play in making governments understand the need for legislation at national and international level so as to ensure the right to water, in other words, the right to life”, said Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC), Chair of the PACE Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs, in Strasbourg today at the opening of the Parliamentary Process Preparatory Conference for the 5th World Water Forum to be held in Istanbul from 16 to 22 March 2009.
30/10/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A conference to prepare for the “parliamentarian process” of the 5th World Water Forum, jointly organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the World Water Council, is to take place at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg from 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on Thursday 6 November.
08/09/2008 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"Protecting the environment, the right to live in a healthy environment, is not just a matter of applying principles by which we all set great store. It concerns the protection of a fundamental right for the citizens of our continent," said PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig, this morning in Madrid when he gave the opening address of the colloquy being held by the Environment Committee on the theme "The role of parliaments in the management of water resources."