Live from Copenhagen: Successful call of International NGOs at UN Climate Meeting

Over 50,000 People from Around the World demand a “Nuclear Free Climate Agreement”

15.12.2009 |WECF Press Release

NGO postcard action at the Bella Center

December 15, 2009, Copenhagen - Today, over a dozen NGOs participating in the international “Don’t Nuke the Climate” campaign presented government delegates with a giant postcard and 50,000 signatures calling for a nuclear free climate agreement. The NGOs were joined by prominent green figures including two former Environment Ministers of France, Yves COCHET (French MP), and Corinne LEPAGE (MEP) ; MEP, International alterglobalization movement leader Jose BOVE , and MEP Yannick JADOT (partial list).

Yves COCHET said “The nuclear is an issue at Copenhagen, because some people including the French government want nuclear power included in the future agreement. We must oppose that because we already knows all the big problems of the nuclear power such as wastes, radioactivity pollution, safety and security, proliferation. Moreover it’s a very expensive technology!”
Speaking on behalf of the “Don’t Nuke the Climate Campaign” Charlotte Mijeon of Sortir du Nucleaire France said “ We are here to present the signatures we have collected in the last couple of months for a nuclear free climate agreement. In a very short period of time, 350 organisations from 40 countries collected 50,000 signatures from more than 100 countries on every continent. This shows that thousands upon thousands of people around the globe want a fair climate deal where expensive, dirty and dangerous nuclear energy is not part of the package.”

Jose Bove signing the banner

Reiterating the dangers of nuclear power Mijeon added “Nuclear power is a distraction from real climate change solutions. The nuclear industry is shamelessly trying to use the climate catastrophe as an excuse to become relevant to our global energy future. This however does not make any economic sense; for the same amount of money invested in wind power you can reduce double the emissions compared to nuclear without the potentially horrific side effects, including accidents and terrorism.”

Sabine Bock of WECF said, „the challenge of the Post-Kyoto regime, which should bring reductions of 95% of GHGs by 2050, - as the European Presidency announced today in Copenhagen – there is no place for nuclear energy. Even a massive fourfold expansion of nuclear energy till 2050, as recommended by the International Energy Agency, would only bring a marginal reduction of GHG of 4%. The contribution to the reduction of CO2 would come well beyond 2020, as it takes a decade from planning to operating a nuclear power plant - and the costs of 10 billion USD are immense and not competitive with real solutions such as wind, hydro and solar".

Devising a post-2012 framework that will be effective in large scale GHG reductions is a big challenge while these NGOs state that nuclear power clearly has no place. Even a massive, four-fold expansion of nuclear power by 2050 as proposed by International Energy Agency would provide only marginal reductions (4%) in greenhouse gas emissions, when we need global emissions to peak by 2015 and be close to zero as much as possible by 2050. Nuclear energy’s “contribution” to fighting climate change would come too late (long after 2020), with huge costs (US$ 10 trillion) and would create a myriad of other serious hazards related to accidents, waste and proliferation. These large costs and negative impacts make nuclear energy an obstacle to the necessary development of effective, clean and affordable energy sources – both in developing and industrialized countries.

massive media attention

Support for investments in nuclear power were excluded from the financial mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol including the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) during the first commitment period.

The “Don’t Nuke the Climate” Campaign is calling on states to continue their investments from the UNFCCC into truly clean energy sources and to keep nuclear power out of the climate agreements coming from Copenhagen and beyond.

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