WECF and Umweltinstitut München, Germany: Keep nuclear energy out!

Both organisations demand nuclear free final statement Climate Conference

06.12.2007 |Sabine Bock

Nuclear power provides barely 3 percent of the world’s total energy consumption. If nuclear power would be expected to cover a much higher portion of global energy needs, thousands of new plants would have to be built in a short time – an extremely unrealistic scenario.

By continuing to spread nuclear technologies, the access to nuclear weapons capable material becomes easier and the danger of illegal nuclear proliferation dramatically increases. The world will not become more secure.

Fossil fuels are not the only finite energy source, uranium is also limited. The estimated reserves will last for about 70 more years. If we drastically increase the development of electricity from nuclear power, the uranium reserves will run out that much sooner.

High level nuclear waste is radioactive for thousands of years. There are still no completely safe solutions for nuclear waste storage. It’s irresponsible to increase the nuclear inheritance for our children and grandchildren.

Some epidemiological studies reveal a statistically significant increase of childhood cancer (all malignancies) in our youngest children (0 – 4 years) living in the vicinity of commercial nuclear power plants (< 5 km) in normal operation. It would be drastically worse in the case of a serious accident. This should be reason enough to shut down all nuclear power plants.

The Munich Environmental Institute together with Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) demand that the final statement of the Bali UNFCCC agree with the conclusion of the environmental ministers of Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Norway, Luxembourg and Iceland who met in Vienna on 1 October 2007 and who said that they (the ministers) do not consider nuclear power an instrument to answer the challenge of climate change.

This position of WECF and Umweltinstitut München was joined by the Climate Action Network - CAN - the network of NGOs, which join forces to tackle the climate challenge and published in the NGO newspaper ECO.

WECF is member of CAN and advocates at the conference for the position of NGOs and gender cc - the network of women for climate justice.