Global Utmaning

13 år sedan

“Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power is astonishing – and worrying. It will increase emissions of CO2 and also simultaneously increase the uncertain and more and more uncomfortable dependence on energy supplies from Russia” – says Karl Hallding energy expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute and member of the Global Challenge advisory board on climate issues.

Germany’s decision to phase out all nuclear power within ten years is as astonishing as it is disturbing. As the dirty brown coal will continue to dominate the German electric power industry, this decision actually implies a substantially higher greenhouse effect than if you kept the nuclear power and instead focused on phasing out the equivalent amount of coal. It is a strange decision that signals a German position that says that nuclear power is a much bigger problem than brown coal.

This attitude is the complete opposite to an overwhelming global recognition that the climate is a crucial issue and that it is very urgent to exploit all possible opportunities to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And the whole thing is of course even more tragic in light of reports this week that greenhouse gases have reached new highs as the economy is reaching high speed again after the financial crisis.

It is also bizarre how the environmental movement seems completely devoid of insight into how it all is interconnected. If you take away nearly a quarter of the electricity generation from the world’s fourth largest economy by the closing of nuclear power, it is clear that this substantially reduces the possibility of reducing our dependence on coal power. It does not matter that one increases the focus on development of alternative energy sources – this one could have done anyway, and thus reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

As strange is the opinion that this would not really matter as long as Germany can reach their emission targets. The fact is that all countries must do much more in terms of reducing their emissions. And given an internationalized electricity market it does not matter where emission reductions occur. The European electricity market consists of communicating vessels. If a country takes away production capacity from the electricity network, this means that electricity produced elsewhere is required to make up for the production losses that occur. This is very much also true for Sweden, where a strange discussion is going on that says that we have surplus of electricity and therefore can close down our power plants. The fact is that as long as there is coal power in Europe, the shutdown of nuclear power in a country will imply that dirty coal power will persist longer and contribute to global warming.

Finally, we still live in blissful ignorance of the fact that we are facing two crucial issues at the same time that will make our society face major challenges, even within the next decade. Besides the climate, which will lead to increased impacts in the form of droughts, heatwaves, storms, floods, we face a rapidly increasing competition for energy. The explosive growth of the BRICS countries and other fast-growing developing economies, is leading to rapidly increasing demand for all forms of energy – renewables, as well as oil, coal and gas. Europe has a much more fragile energy security than our competitor countries. Both in the U.S. and China, energy security is an important argument for actions that also benefit the environment. In Europe we are debating the issue of climate change in as it was mainly an environmental moral issue of taking responsibility for the future.

These are the confusing moralisms that in Germany have allowed the insane decision to shut down a quarter of its electrical power and thus both substantially reduce the scope for reducing greenhouse emissions while increasing the uncertain and increasingly uncomfortable dependence on energy supplies from Russia.

Karl Hallding
Stockholm Environment Institute
Member of the Global Challenge Advisory Board