11/11/2020, 01:11
Liebe Unterstützende,
der Petent oder die Petentin hat innerhalb der letzten 12 Monate nach Ende der Unterschriftensammlung keine Neuigkeiten erstellt und den Status nicht geändert. openPetition geht davon aus, dass die Petition nicht eingereicht oder übergeben wurde.
Wir bedanken uns herzlich für Ihr Engagement und die Unterstützung,
Ihr openPetition-Team
09/29/2019, 20:50
Dear Supporters,
If you haven’t heard the news – last week we had a win for science-based climate policy-making. It was announced on Wednesday night that EU ministers decided not to restrict nuclear energy for inclusion on the sustainable finance taxonomy.Here's a link to the news story: www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/council-maintains-nuclear-as-eligible-for-green-finance/
Predictably, and yet still shockingly, Germany, Austria and Luxembourg voted against it. History will judge them, and those NGOs, including WWF, that are campaigning, purely on ideological grounds, to shut down Europe's largest source of clean energy during the height of our climate emergency.
From the Energy for Humanity team, our partners at THINK ATOM, and myself, we would like to thank you all for your support in arguing that Europe's largest source of low carbon power should be included in taxonomy. By signing and sharing this petition you are helping to ensure that the environmental and humanitarian benefits of nuclear power are represented and heard.
To date, we have written and submitted our ‘Assessment of Nuclear Sustainability’ report, started a petition (which reached 50 % of our 5000 strong target after only 16 days!), and gathered more than 1,100 supportive comments. Our goal is to submit this petition to the EU Commission to support the case for why their decision to include nuclear is essential to meet our climate and energy goals.
However, for the petition to be officially submitted we need 5,000 signatures. We know that with your help we can get even more people engaged… But how?
We need you and your powerful voices to speak up: in person, online, on social media. Please help ensure nuclear energy is included in the green agenda once and for all.Talk to your family around the dinner table, engage with your colleagues at the office water fountain, start-up a conversation about nuclear energy at the pub… We all know that nuclear energy needs to be a part of those conversations if climate change is ever going to be seriously addressed.
Next steps: The inclusion of nuclear energy as a source of low carbon and sustainable generation must still be confirmed by the European Commission and the Parliament.
The outcome of the negotiations is very uncertain, and the real devil will be in the implementation phase. Therefore, we need to keep the pressure up. You can help.
1. We need to strengthen the Council and the Member States (who agree with us) on the issue of how nuclear power is sustainable. Use our Sustainable Nuclear report, and other materials on the Energy for Humanity website, to draft your own correspondence making the case for nuclear to be included to policy makers, political representatives and the media.
2. Brief your local European MEPs.
3. Write to the new Technical Expert Group to offer expert input in support of the Council and Parliament's negotiations.
4. Share our petition through your networks to help us reach the goal of 5,000 signatures.
Peace and love for all,
Kirsty x
Please do read and share the links to our sustainability report (energyforhumanity.org/resources/reports-en/sustainable-nuclear-assessment-sustainability-nuclear-power-eu-taxonomy-consultation-2019/) and the Taxonomy report (ec.europa.eu/info/files/190618-sustainable-finance-teg-report-taxonomy_en) and see for yourself what you think.
Ps. Full disclosure: EDF Energy UK sponsored the work required to do the research and writing. We did it only on the condition that we have full editorial control on the result.
09/11/2019, 17:20
Separated out the names of signatories
Corrected a typo
New petition description: Currently, practically no nation is on track in doing its share on stopping climate change at 1.5, 2 or even 3 degrees C. What we have been doing is clearly not enough. We need all the options on the table, and more. For the last decade or more, policy regarding nuclear energy has been regressive both in individual EU countries and at the EU level in general.
If Europe gives up on nuclear investment – no new reactors nor lifetime extensions – it will mean 4 billion tons of more emissions, says IEA (2019), and much higher climate mitigation costs. To have a chance of stopping climate change closer to 1.5 C, we would need to have many times more nuclear globally than we have now by 2050, says IPCC (2018). This is in addition to huge amounts of renewable energy added and heroic improvements on energy efficiency.
To help facilitate investment in sustainable activities, European Commission named a Technical Expert Group (TEG) to collect a Taxonomy of sustainable investments. Basically, the Taxonomy’s purpose is to be a go-to source for investors and funds that are looking for sustainable investments.
The first version of the Taxonomy is now out (link below). Nuclear was considered, its merits for climate change mitigation were acknowledged, but it was still left out.
Why are they leaving nuclear out? Apparently, especially the long-term storage of nuclear waste was an issue that they found conflicting and complex evidence on, and ended up demanding empirical evidence of final repository operations to ensure that they meet the Do No Significant Harm-criteria (DNSH). To get to this position, the TEG members had to go through several steps:
First, all the nuclear regulation and legislation both on EU level and on national level that specifically states that nuclear waste is to be managed responsibly without significant harm done – something that the nuclear industry has been doing for decades very successfully – was dismissed.
Second, it seems to be assumed that somehow all the decades worth of international research into the nuclear waste storage safety case has been horribly wrong. And not just wrong, but wrong on the level of thousands of times wrong. That research shows clearly that final repositories can be built to be extremely safe, essentially meeting the Do No Significant Harm -requirement.
Third, somehow all the best experts and national nuclear safety regulators have not noticed this, and have given statements to support the construction of said repositories as per the DNSH requirements in legislation and regulations.
Finally, it seems to be the assumption that not only have we been horribly wrong without anybody noticing it, it is also assumed that there is nothing we can do about it. Even though, well, we have been managing nuclear waste for decades in Europe without practically nobody anybody getting hurt.
Now, nuclear waste is a complex topic, and the TEG group, which was on a very tight schedule with the taxonomy, has requested for more time to gather further evidence on the matter. The thing is, if we don’t act now, there is no telling how deeply this subject will be buried within the political system of the EU. We know that Germany and some other countries would love to bury nuclear in Europe, they have made this very clear publicly many times. But the evidence shows us that if they do, they also bury our hopes of a timely climate mitigation. So, we can’t let them.
We at Energy for Humanity and THINK ATOM have spent our summer doing research and writing a response for the Technical Expert Group. We call it the “Assessment of Nuclear Sustainability.” You can download the pdf at the link below and read our case for yourself.
energyforhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Sustainable_Nuclear_consultation_web_pages.pdf
Peace and love for all, and nuclear for climate,
Kirsty Gogan, Global Director, Energy for Humanity, Rauli Partanen, THINK ATOM, Eric Ingersoll, Energy Options Network, Staffan Qvist, Author, A Bright Future
Ps. Full disclosure: EDF Energy UK sponsored the work required to do the research and writing. We did it only on the condition that we have full editorial control on the result.
Link to our Assessment report: energyforhumanity.org/resources/reports-en/sustainable-nuclear-assessment-sustainability-nuclear-power-eu-taxonomy-consultation-2019/
Link to TEG Report on Taxonomy: ec.europa.eu/info/files/190618-sustainable-finance-teg-report-taxonomy_en
Signatures at the time of the change: 11 (11 in Europäische Union)
