2023-12-02 18:50:26
The United Arab Emirates celebrates its national day on Saturday, but there can be no talk of calm in Dubai: On the second day of the summit of 160 heads of state and government at the World Climate Conference in the Gulf, a whole series of important decisions were made. On the one hand, they show how far apart approaches to climate protection still lie. But one can also view the development positively and state that there are different currents, that there is competition towards the same goal: to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by the year 2100 compared to the period before industrialization.
An announcement by 22 countries from four continents that they would triple their nuclear energy generation capacity by 2050 caused a stir on Saturday. The three main participating countries are the United States, Great Britain and France. They argue that the climate goals can only be achieved with the help of greenhouse gas-free nuclear fission and that the process is more reliable and weather-independent than solar and wind power. Nuclear power is already “the second largest source of clean, available baseload electricity generation.”
In France, the technology contributes almost 63 percent of electricity generation, in the USA more than 18 percent and in the United Kingdom around 14 percent. The signatories of the declarations also include the United Arab Emirates as host of the climate conference called COP28 (12 percent), Canada (13), South Korea (30). Japan (6) is also there despite the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, which led to Germany’s nuclear phase-out; In the Federal Republic, the last three nuclear power plants were shut down in April.
Germany is not one of the supporters
According to figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2022, around 5 percent of electricity in this country still comes from domestic nuclear sources. Of course, Berlin is not one of the supporters of Saturday’s declaration, but the EU includes Bulgaria, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, among others. Moldova and Ukraine, where the largest European nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia with six reactors is located, also support the declaration, as do Morocco, Ghana and Mongolia.
The paper says: “The declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 and keeping the 1.5 degree target within reach.” To achieve this, is an important demand to strengthen cooperation between nuclear states and to “invite” international financial institutions to include nuclear power in their “credit policy in the energy sector”. In the so-called EU taxonomy, the technology is already one of the low-greenhouse gas solutions and can therefore be financed and promoted.
American climate envoy John Kerry said there were “trillions of dollars” available for nuclear financing. Technology is not the only solution to the climate crisis, “but we cannot be net greenhouse gas neutral by 2050 without a certain amount of nuclear energy.” French President Emmanuel Macron assured that nuclear power is an “indispensable solution” in the fight against global warming. This would also have to include the new small modular reactors.
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