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Clara Lieberman
Socialist International <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió:
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Asunto: London meeting of SI Commission
De:Socialist International<[EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Fecha: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:24:20 +0000 (GMT)
Meeting of the SI Commission for a Sustainable
World Society, London, 19 November 2007
The first meeting of the SI Commission for a Sustainable World Society the
body established to address the global environmental agenda, climate change and
the issues of governance required to deal with these common challenges - took
place at 10 Downing Street on Monday 19 November, hosted by Prime Minister
Gordon Brown, Leader of the British Labour Party.
Addressing the meeting, Prime Minister Brown said that allying environmental
care and stewardship with social justice and economic progress was the
challenge facing social democrats everywhere. How these three elements were to
be achieved, he continued, was transforming the role of government. His
government recognised this change in emphasis and would be the first to place
environmental commitments on the statute, with the Climate Change Bill. Sharing
the urgency of the task, the Prime Minister welcomed the global, cooperative
and representative approach of the Socialist International and its Commission
in dealing with these issues, and felt sure the Commission would propose a
progressive way forward to a post-2012 framework to tackle climate change.
Co-Chair of the Commission, Göran Persson, former Prime Minister of Sweden,
highlighted the urgency of the task ahead of the body, reiterating that the
scientific evidence indicated that action on climate change needed to be taken
in the next five to ten years before it was too late to halt the environmental
damage being caused. The Socialist Internationals contribution would be vital,
he went on, ensuring that the international agenda for climate change was based
on solidarity and linked to eradicating poverty. The Commission, he said, would
need to lead the way globally and regionally: now that the international
community knew the scientific basis on which it needed to act and the
multilateral mechanism within which to take measures, it was a question of
starting real action From know-how to do now.
Underlining the importance of the Socialist International in bringing its
values to bear for a sustainable world society, George Papandreou, President of
the Socialist International and leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement,
Pasok, in Greece, said that the social democratic political movement had to
play a role in providing a viable and sustainable response to the question of
climate change, based on its traditional ideals of equality, democracy and
social justice. The recent crisis in his own country of extreme temperatures
had led his party to create policies which were much more environmentally and
ecologically friendly, encouraging regeneration and sustainable solutions, and
he hoped that shared experiences among SI member parties and other partners
could have a global impact.
Members of the Commission, among them Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom; Elio di Rupo, leader of
the Socialist Party of Belgium; Mohamed El Yazghi, leader of the Socialist
Union of Popular Forces, USFP, and Minister of the Government of Morocco;
Aleksandr Kwasniewski, former President of the Republic of Poland; Sergei
Mironov, President of the Federal Council of Russia; Beatriz Paredes, President
of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of Mexico; and the Secretary
General of the Socialist International, Luis Ayala, also took part in the
exchange of views, along with other Ministers from the British government,
Malcolm Wicks, Minister of State for Energy and Rt. Hon. Lord Malloch-Brown,
Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Ian McCartney for the
British Labour Party. In the course of the discussions, several key points were
raised.
As an international organisation with member parties on every continent, close
to 60 of which are in government, partners in key nations to the issue, such as
USA, Brazil, India and Russia, and in contact with other relevant actors, the
participants agreed the Socialist International was ideally placed to tackle
the global issues at the heart of the Commissions remit and its role should be
to communicate a highly political message.
While the climate change situation was not helpless, nor hopeless, the problem
needed to be broken down to be tackled with identifiable aims for action. It
was clear that it could not be left to regressive market forces and the
economic, social and security costs of not dealing with it would be huge.
Participants paid particular attention to developing nations, tackling climate
change could not be used as an excuse to slow down growth of developing
countries nor to increase the price of oil and gas. Developing nations should
not pay the price for climate change, with the vulnerable being the first to
suffer from high energy costs and water scarcity. There was a clear
responsibility to get the interaction right on meeting the challenge of
sustainable development with energy security and environmental concerns.
In the exchanges, it was underlined that the citizen needed to play an active
role in addressing climate change, both in urging politicians and taking
voluntary action themselves. Key to this would be education, with an emphasis
on school programmes focusing on climate change issues, as well as designing
sustainable projects with affected local communities. Concern was expressed
that climate change was not yet central to the political debate in emerging
democracies or in countries where poverty prevails.
The point was raised that there needed to be a better coordinated international
mechanism to support countries suffering from natural and technological
disasters, which were increasingly global in nature.
In terms of global governance, the Commission would need to consider how to
better democratise international institutions. While countries could gain
credibility in the global debate on climate change by their actions nationally,
it was vital that the institutions providing the framework for international
agreements on the issue increased their legitimacy by becoming more accountable
and representative.
A statement was adopted at the meeting outlining the areas of concern for the
Commission, as well as addressing the current environmental agenda ahead of the
United Nations Climate Change Conference to take place in Bali from 3 to 14
December this year.
The Commission agreed on a programme of future work, outlined by the SI
Secretary General. The activities of the Commission will be held in 2008 and
2009, with four meetings of the full Commission: the first in Chile in March
2008; then in Sweden in September 2008; India in March 2009 and culminating in
the last meeting, together with the presentation of the Commissions final
report in connection with the United Nations General Assembly in New York in
September 2009. In conjunction with these meetings, seminars with political and
social leaders, and experts will be held in 2008, in China in June and in South
Africa in November; and in 2009 in Washington D.C in February and in Russia in
June of that year.
Images of the meeting
For updates on all Socialist International news and activities, keep in touch
with our website www.socialistinternational.org
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