PARIS – NEWS ADVISORY -- Representatives from seven international clean energy and environmental organizations that comprise the "Don't Nuke the Climate" campaign will be available to speak to the news media during the Paris climate summit going on now. "Don't Nuke the Climate" was created in June 2015 with the goal of ensuring that the COP 21 climate negotiations do not include nuclear power as a climate "solution."
As the campaign points out, expanded use of nuclear power as a means of reducing carbon emissions would be counterproductive--resulting in fewer carbon reductions and at higher cost than an energy system based on 100% clean energy. For more information, go to http://www.nirs.org/cop21/dontnuketheclimate.htm.
Nuclear power is not only too slow to provide any meaningful carbon reductions in the near term--new reactors typically take 10 years or more to build --but the stratospheric cost of new nuclear energy, now higher than wind, solar, other renewables and energy efficiency (and will be higher than energy storage before any reactors ordered today could be brought into commercial operation) means that limited resources would be diverted away from and "crowd out" deployment of those cheaper, cleaner energy technologies.
Add to that nuclear power's other well-known drawbacks: atomic meltdowns, routine releases of toxic radiation, environmental devastation of uranium mining, generation of lethal radioactive waste with no long-term storage solution, nuclear proliferation, and it is clear that a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy system is necessary to address our climate crisis.
Some of the groups involved in the Don't Nuke the Climate campaign played pivotal roles in the COP 6 conference in The Hague in November 2000, which ultimately excluded nuclear power from the Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism for precisely these reasons.
Experts from several of the groups are available to speak to the media during COP 21. All will be onsite there by Saturday, December 5; some are already there.
Tim Judson. Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (USA). Mr. Judson is an expert on nuclear and energy economics. As chair of the board of New England's Citizens Awareness Network, he played a key role in the shutdown of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor. In addition, as a co-founder of New York's Alliance for a Green Economy (AGREE), he has also been directly involved with challenging the operation of New York's Fitzpatrick reactor. Last month, Entergy Corporation announced that Fitzpatrick will close sometime next year.
Cellphone: 212-729-1169
timj@nirs.org
Peer de Rijk. Executive Director of WISE International, Amsterdam.
Activist against nuclear power since 1980. Has been working on the UN climate negotiations since COP6 in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2000.
In Paris from December 4 until December 13.
Can be contacted via
Cellphone: +316 20000 626
Twitter: @peerderijk
Email: director@wiseinternational.org
Dr. Reinhard Uhrig, head of campaigns, Global 2000–Friends of the Earth Austria
Can speak about Austria, how we got the government to take the European Commission to the European Court over Hinkley Point subsidies and how we got the Austrian chancellor to say that he is opposed to nuclear & will go for 100 % renewables by 2030 at the COP
reinhard.uhrig@global2000.at
Cellphone: 004369914200018
Charlotte Mijeon, a spokesperson for the French antinuclear network "Sortir du nucléaire", comprised of more than 900 groups in France.
She has worked for "Sortir du nucléaire" since 2008 and followed the climate negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009. She can speak about the reality of nuclear power in France and the French position on nuclear power at COP 21.
Contact information: charlotte.mijeon@sortirdunucleaire.fr
Cellphone: +33 (0)6 64 66 0123
Vladimir Sliviak, director, Ecodefense, Moscow, Russia
A veteran and successful campaigner against nuclear power in Russia, played a major role in blocking construction of the Kaliningrad nuclear power plant. Can speak about anything related to nuclear power and Russia. He has also traveled extensively in India and South Africa, working against Russian plans for nuclear expansion in those countries, and can speak about nuclear issues there as well.
Cellphone: +79032997584
ecodefense@online.ru
Kerstin Rudek, Board of Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz Lüchow-Dannenberg
Anti nuclear activist and manager since 1982. Exploration site for final deposit of high radioactive waste GORLEBEN, Germany. Castor Transports. Energy transition manifestation. Nuclear phase out in Germany. International relations of fighting the nuclear lobby.
Cell phone, whats app and telegram: +49(0)15902154831
email: kerstin.rudek@bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
www.bi-luechow-dannenberg.de
Diane D'Arrigo, Radioactive Waste Project Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service (USA). Has been in this position since 1986. Expert on all issues related to radioactive waste, including high-level waste, "low-level" waste, deregulation of radwaste, as well as expert on radiation and its effects.
Cellphone: 202-841-8588
dianed@nirs.org
For information in the U.S. on nuclear power and climate, please contact Michael Mariotte, President, Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Cellphone: 301-325-8014; nirsnet@nirs.org
/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- Dec. 3, 2015/
SOURCE Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Takoma Park, MD
