Search Results for: Climate change

BY MONICA DOBIE
AN OVERWHELMING majority of Canadians are displeased with their private motor insurance schemes and believe their provincial governments should step in to regulate the industry, according to a recent public opinion poll.

Of the 1,017 respondents interviewed, 75 per cent said these regional authorities should use their constitutional powers on insurance to impose limits on premium increases, and an equal number say that they should not exceed the inflation rate for people with clean driving records.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE INSURANCE industry has reacted with a chorus of dismay to a sweeping proposal by the European Commission to eliminate gender discrimination in the supply of goods and services. The central element in the Brussels plan is that the use of sex as a factor in the calculation of premiums and benefits for insurance and related financial services would be outlawed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have welcomed the European Commission’s environment and health strategy for 2004-2010, approving its initial focus on childhood respiratory diseases, asthma, allergies; neuro-developmental disorders; child cancer and endocrine disrupters.

Ministers called on the Commission to develop research models to assess the health impact of public policies, (and associated socio-economic affects), especially on children and other vulnerable groups.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
DECLARATIONS of intent on tackling climate change are no longer good enough, delegates to last week’s (Nov4-5) Royal Institute on International Affairs/Carbon Trust conference on delivering climate technology was told by a senior executive from Italy’s environment ministry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL pressure applied by the European Union (EU) on its Member States to improve the environmental performance of their water sectors is failing to achieve the desired results, according to a report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed a regulation that would authorise the sale in the European Union (EU) of drinks in so-called ‘active’ or ‘intelligent’ packaging that interacts with a product, transmitting information to consumers about its quality. These inventions can be incorporated into glass bottles or even coffee machines, but they are currently banned in the EU, where legislation blocks the sale of packaging touching food and drink that generates a chemical reaction with the product.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
THE IMMEDIATE challenge posed by global warming to the petroleum industry – reducing carbon dioxide while maintaining low-regulated emissions – has to be combined with care that consumers can afford resulting new technologies and fuels, a Royal Institute for International Affairs’ climate technology conference in London heard.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DENMARK’S Risoe National Laboratory expects wind power to become fully competitive with conventional power plants within seven to 10 years, the climate technology conference heard. Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust (joint organiser of the conference), said offshore wind plant would be especially competitive, creating enough power for domestic use and for export.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have welcomed the European Commission’s plan to develop the EU’s first environment and health strategy (for 2004-2010), calling on Brussels officials to develop research models assessing the health impact of public policies, (and associated socio-economic affects).…