A continuing insistence on nuclear will be detrimental to our ability to power a Just Transition: while the jobs it creates are few and primarily for the highly skilled, its enormous costs will likely result in austerity policies.
The notion of geoengineering includes a wide array of technologies that seek to intervene in and alter earth systems on a large scale – a “technofix” to climate change. There are many reasons to be wary of these technologies. They do not address the underlying causes of climate change themselves, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, thereby delaying the implementation of a transition away from fossil fuels. Moreover, as they are very pricy, they redirect funding and investments away from real climate solutions.
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2021 (WNISR2021) assesses the status and trends of the international nuclear industry, and contains several focus chapters, including a first assessment of Nuclear Power and Climate Change Resilience. A special Fukushima Status Report – 10 Years After provides an overview of ongoing onsite/offsite challenges, health impacts, judicial decisions, and cost estimates of the disaster. Chernobyl – 35 Years After the Disaster Began looks at advances in the cleanup and remaining challenges. For the first time, WNISR dedicates a chapter to the problem of Nuclear Power and Criminal Energy.
There is hardly any other food that pollutes our environment and the climate as badly as meat. However, no government in the world currently has a concept of how meat consumption and production can be significantly reduced. But if the sector continues to grow as it has up to now, almost 360 million tons of meat will be produced and consumed worldwide in 2030. With ecological effects that are hard to imagine.
The findings of this joint policy brief challenge the flawed underlying assumptions of the original EU Joint Research Centre (JRC)’s assessment, published in April 2021, which concluded that nuclear energy is detrimental neither to people nor to the environment. These concern chiefly four aspects: the role of nuclear energy for power generation in the EU27; nuclear waste management; the risk assessment of nuclear technologies; and nuclear proliferation.
This report maps the gender gaps and opportunities in the EU’s flagship European Green Deal. It explores how, though gender issues affect environmental policies and vice-versa, they are not integrated into the European Green Deal, and provides recommendations on how to move from gender-blind to gender-transformative environmental policies. These include intersectional and gender equal environmental objectives, moving towards a feminist economy of well-being and care and ensuring the use of gender mainstreaming methodologies in environmental policies.
The debate in France today on choosing the electricity mix is set against the backdrop of an ageing production infrastructure that is earmarked for replacement. So, what electricity mix is the answer? And does the country need to build new nuclear reactors in order to have decarbonised electricity?
Nuclear energy has been brought back into the European energy debate due to populist power. Currently, a complex debate is taking place within the EU about whether nuclear power should be part of the Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. To determine whether nuclear energy can, or even should, play a role in future energy policy, it must fulfil basic criteria of sustainability.
Sustainable transport and mobility are key to tackle the climate crisis and to achieve the targets of the European Green Deal. However, transport today accounts for nearly 30 percent of the CO₂ emissions within the European Union. How can the EU reduce its transport and mobility emissions while connecting citizens, creating green jobs and leading the innovation in the sector?
Transport amounts for more than 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. Mobility is a key element of the interconnected European Union and its neighbours. Rail is and has been the way to connect Europe sustainably, by night trains and high-speed connections. The sustainable showcase projects have been chosen in order to raise the interest in ‘special’ new mobility projects.
