Background

Climate change is a global problem. Countries must work towards the reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions in to the environment. When addressing climate change, policy-makers should consider zero and low emitting electricity generating technologies, including nuclear energy.

Latest developments

As part of its work to coordinate European Member States battle against Climate Change, earlier in 2007 the European Commission set out proposals and options for keeping climate change to manageable levels in its Communication "Limiting Global Climate Change to 2° Celsius: The way ahead for 2020 and beyond." The 2007 Spring Council adopted the proposals and set the targets of 20% CO2 emission reduction and 20% renewable increase by 2020.

In January 2008, the European Commission published formal legislative proposals to review the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and increase the share of renewables in the energy mix which will outline the revisions to be made to the scheme from 2012 onwards. The so-called climate and energy package was adopted by the Parliament and the Council in December 2008 and April 2009 respectively.

The European Parliament has established a Temporary Committee on Climate Change (CLIM) in order to coordinate the views of MEPs on the issue. CLIM has a mandate which ran until 10 February 2009. Its final report by Mr. Florenz on "2050: The future begins today - recommendations for the EU´s future integrated policy on climate change" was adopted in plenary on 4 February 2009 by 570 votes in favour, 78 against and 24 abstentions.

FORATOM Environment Task Force

FORATOM believes that the EU needs to maintain a diversified and flexible energy mix in order to meet the combined challenges of security of energy supply, CO2 reduction and delivery of electricity at competitive prices. We are convinced that nuclear energy can help to address all these challenges. Any future climate change agreements and policies should establish a framework that encourages the use of nuclear generation as part of the energy mix.

The nuclear power sector can play an even greater role in greenhouse gas abatement through the construction of new nuclear plants, plant lifetime extensions and plant upgrades. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) believes that nuclear should continue to play an important role in the overall effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the decades to come.

The current use of nuclear energy (accounting for about 15% of the world's electricity generation) avoids the emission of about 2.1 billion tonnes of CO2 every year. In the EU as whole, the avoidance levels amount to 675 million tonnes of CO2 per year, taking into account the current energy mix. By comparison, the EU has a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction target of 446 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent below 1990 level by 2008-2012. To make savings equivalent to those from the use of nuclear power, all passenger cars in the EU (212.5 million) would have to be taken off the roads.

At present, low-CO2 emitting sources: nuclear and renewable energies, (including hydropower), produce 45% of the EU's electricity representing 17% of total energy consumption. Nuclear energy accounts for [more than three quarters] of this low-carbon electricity, and nearly one third of total electricity generated.

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