05/12/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“We in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe strongly believe that Kyoto should not be allowed to expire without a new regime to replace it. If a new regime cannot be agreed, then Kyoto must continue until this occurs,” Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC) warned at the Durban IPU panel on ‘creating a virtuous push and pull cycle for low carbon and renewable energy projects’.
01/12/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“The clock is ticking on the Kyoto Protocol. Unless agreement is reached at Durban, the global agreement on targets and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions negotiated at Kyoto will almost certainly expire without any binding targets or actions agreed for the period 2012-20,” today warned Lord Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC), former rapporteur on climate change for the Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE) and Kyoto Treaty signatory.
29/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
In a draft resolution adopted at a meeting in Paris today, the PACE Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs underlines the urgent need for independent and credible expert assessments in fields such as the environment, health, energy, finance or civil protection. “Findings vary in accordance with the source of funding,” the PACE rapporteur on this subject, Cezar Florin Preda (Romania, EPP/CD) stressed.
28/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Biomass, solar energy, wind energy (including offshore facilities), marine energy, geothermal energy, biofuels, hydropower and nuclear power are all complementary sources which need to be developed in parallel. This was the conclusion of the 150 or so participants at a panel discussion on the choice of the energies of the future, organised by the PACE Sub-Committee on Energy, in Alfortville on 27 November.
28/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Famine kills one person in the world every second, in 2010 alone, 925 million were considered “hungry” by FAO. Increased productivity in the countries concerned is indispensable and could be achieved through more efficient production and through a focus on smallholder agriculture as a centerpiece to improve resilience, participants at a hearing organised in Paris by the PACE Environment Committee on food security said today.
23/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A round table on the table on the choice of future energy sources will gather experts and parliamentarians from PACE 47 member states on 27 November in Alfortville. In the present context of an energy turnaround, the experts will present the various foreseeable energy sources and their development prospects: nuclear, solar, thermal, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, marine and biomass energy.
17/11/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, meeting today in Florence for the fifth meeting of the Network of Contact Parliamentarians to stop sexual violence against children, made the following statement:
17/10/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Poverty is a barrier to the enjoyment of human rights, whether civil and political rights or social, economic and cultural rights,” Luca Volontè (Italy, EPP/CD), former PACE rapporteur on combating poverty said today, on the occasion of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. “Poverty, which singles out the disabled, the elderly, unmarried mothers and many other categories, necessarily curtails the exercise of human rights for its victims,” he added.
10/10/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Council of Europe’s Revised Social Charter – which allows trade unions and NGOs to bring collective complaints against states over social rights – needs to be stronger, more widely applied and better known, a parliamentary hearing on the charter heard this week. The hearing was organised by PACE’s Sub-committee on the European Social Charter and Employment to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Charter.
29/09/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"Children should have the right of access to health care of the highest quality, as well as the right to protection and to participation in decisions concerning them," today said Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE) in Lisbon, where he is representing PACE at the 9th Council of Europe Conference of Health Ministers, on the theme of "Child-Friendly Health Care: Building a Healthy Future for and with Children".
23/09/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Parliamentarians have an important role to play in ensuring that governments take all necessary measures to secure fundamental social rights,” today said Carina Ohlsson (Sweden, SOC), addressing a colloquium marking the 50th anniversary of the European Social Charter in Paris. “Europe’s social achievements must be protected,” she stressed.
16/09/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"Any kind of ‘sexualisation’ of children in the media and elsewhere is to be avoided and combated, for it constitutes a first step towards representing as sexual objects our children, who then find themselves exposed to abuse and exploitation by sex offenders and criminal groups", according to Augustin Conde Bajén (Spain EPP/CD), speaking today when he presented to the Social Affairs Committee, meeting in Paris, his report on child abuse images.