Letter: Germany should postpone nuclear exit to help climate
From Dr John Law and others - Our best-read letter of the last week
Your article highlighted the disillusionment of young Germans with political parties that are failing to meet their needs on climate protection — even with the Greens (Opinion, September 24). They are right to be anxious.
The country’s emissions are rising sharply again, at a time when they need to be falling fast. In 2021, they are forecast to stand at only 37 per cent below the 1990 baseline level, still 3 per cent short of the 2020 target of a 40 per cent reduction (which has in effect been missed). Delays are also being experienced to the rollout of renewables and transmission line construction, while the recent steep rise in the price of natural gas is encouraging more coal burning. So its next goal for 2030, of a 65 per cent cut, looks in serious jeopardy.
Yet Germany is not taking full advantage of all possibilities. The elephant in the room is its move to carbonise its electricity system. By 2022, it will have shut down two decades ahead of time its remaining six nuclear reactors. This withdrawal of a huge 8 gigawatts of low-carbon power generation, presently meeting 10 per cent of national daytime demand, will lead to around 60m tonnes of additional carbon emissions each year, as it is compelled to burn more fossil fuels to deliver the replacement power. This will boost national emissions by 5 per cent on the 1990 baseline.
There is still time to set matters straight. Germany could yet alter course and adjust its order of priority to exit coal before nuclear. All it would take is the stroke of a pen to reinstate the former life extensions, agreed in 2010, to the plants to between 2030 and 2036.
Is any politician brave enough to implement this concrete change that would unequivocally make a positive impact upon emissions, at what is a critical moment in the climate crisis? This emergency action — a postponement of the nuclear exit, not a cancellation — would rightfully earn the respect of the younger generation.
Dr John Law
Founder, Clean Energy Revolution
Prof Steven Pinker
Harvard University
Mark Lynas
Author and Environmentalist
Dr James Hansen
Columbia University, New York
George Monbiot
Author and Environmentalist
Prof Wade Allison
University of Oxford
Prof Joshua Goldstein
American University, Washington, DC
Malcolm Grimston
Imperial College London
Rauli Partanen
Founder, Think Atom
Robert Stone
Documentary Film-maker
Prof Gerry Thomas
Imperial College London