A Green Party Nuclear Power Policy fit for the 21st Century
Greens For Nuclear Energy seek to influence the Green movement’s key organisations and institutions to favour nuclear energy. We need every available low carbon power source to combat catastrophic climate change. Our first campaign is to change the Green Party’s policy (England & Wales), which is currently:
EN014: Nuclear power, coal and incineration of waste will be phased out
We believe that the increasingly urgent need to deal decisively with our emerging climate crisis makes continued opposition to nuclear energy irrational for environmentalists and reduces our chances of averting a climate catastrophe.
We therefore oppose the early decommissioning of existing nuclear reactors, unless it can be shown that continued use of any given plant is a present threat to human life, the environment or property.
We support the research and development of new advanced nuclear power technologies and the continued use of existing nuclear power plants until each power plant reaches end-of-life.
We are pro-renewables and strongly advocate for their deployment where topography, geography and climate permit, where a positive local environmental case is made and where there is no consequent reliance on the burning of Fossil Fuels.
We therefore respectfully urge our fellow Green Party members to approach the nuclear power debate with an open mind and not fall victim to the ‘easy way out’ of dogmatic, hard-wired anti-nuclear ideology.
Our aim is to advocate for and promote clean, safe, reliable nuclear power within the party until we reach critical mass and succeed in bringing a motion at conference to amend Green Party clause EN014, to adopt nuclear power as part of an ambitious new Green Party clean energy policy that is fit for the 21st Century.
How it begins…
There are a wide variety of opinions on Nuclear Energy in the Green Party.
Many members remain strongly ‘anti-nuclear’ and many are simply unsure – not equipped with enough information to feel they can make a decision that they’d be willing to stick their necks out for. An increasing number though are reconsidering their position – most particularly in the context of the sheer magnitude of our Climate Crisis. These are members who recognise the contribution that Nuclear Energy can make – alongside renewables – to rapidly reducing our carbon emissions from not only electricity generation, but across a wide range of sectors.
Some of us are firmly and unequivocally in favour. Some of us say yes – perhaps even through gritted teeth – simply because we recognise that there can be NO compromise to save the climate. Others are on the fence but becoming simply #NuclearCurious.
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What the scientists say…
Kerry A. Emanuel
As a climate scientist who daily confronts the unacceptable risks associated with anthropogenic climate change, I believe the welfare of civilization depends on the rapid development and deployment of economical, carbon-free energy, perhaps supplemented by carbon capture technologies. It is important to understand that this is not merely a question of decarbonizing existing energy...
James Hansen, PhD & Pushker Kharecha, PhD
As concerned climate scientists, we have published and lectured extensively on the scale and urgency of the human-caused climate crisis and the remedies needed for it. One key finding from our work is that the world will need all available non-fossil energy sources -- nuclear energy as well as renewables -- to be scaled up during the next few decades as fossil fuel emissions are...
Francois-Marie Breon
Climate change is now on us and there is a very urgent need to take actions to stabilize the warming to an acceptable level. The 1.5° target that was set 5 years ago during the Paris conference is probably out of reach, and the same fate is likely for the 2° target given our incapacity to take the right measures.About 20 years ago, during the Earth summit conference at Johannesburg,...
Opinion on Nuclear Energy from members of the Green Party
