The United Nations Climate Change Conference currently taking place in Copenhagen is something we’ve only mentioned in passing here on Nuclear Reaction. That said, along with all the other negotiations, Greenpeace and many other organisations and people have been working hard at the conference to prevent nuclear energy being included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

Don't Nuke The Climate action at the Bella Center, Copenhagen
© Sortir du nucléaire.

For those who don’t know it, the CDM is a system set up under the Kyoto Protocol which allows industrialised countries committed to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to earn carbon credits by investing in low-carbon projects in developing countries rather than building more expensive projects in their own countries.

Nuclear energy was specifically excluded from the CDM at the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change conference in 2001. Needless to say, the nuclear industry and its supporters have been lobbying hard ever since for nuclear’s inclusion in the mechanism.

Just why nuclear energy should be included is something of a mystery. As Hélène Pelosse, Director-General of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says, ‘it's a long complicated process, it produces waste and is relatively risky’. Despite the industry’s attempts at greenwash, nuclear energy cannot be considered clean by any sensible or rational definition.

The clue is in the Development Mechanism’s title: ‘Clean’. IRENA again: ‘The Clean Development Mechanism is not called clean out of any reason – only 100% renewable energy is clean’.

So where does this leave the negotiations at Copenhagen? At the time of writing an agreement of any kind between all the parties (that includes nuclear energy or not) hangs in the balance.

Watch this space.

(More information on the nuclear negotiations at Copenhagen can be found on the Don’t Nuke The Climate website)