Cop, smack left. “Tri-nuclear energy”

From the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai comes a reality check and a slap in the face for Italian and European nuclear energy progressives. The green narrative that proposes that energy requirements be based exclusively on renewable energy sources, excluding fossil sources (not only coal, but also gas), and also the use of nuclear energy, is at odds with supply problems. Achieving the energy transition requires the production of an increasing amount of electricity, starting with electric mobility, a necessity that conflicts with dispensing with stable energy sources such as gas. Renewables alone, as natural sources, cannot actually guarantee the necessary stability that nuclear energy, which produces no emissions, can provide.

In order to ensure an environmental transition that reduces carbon dioxide emissions while ensuring energy security, the Joint Declaration signed at COP 28 by nearly twenty countries including the United States, France and the United Arab Emirates, which requested a doubling of nuclear energy capacities. three times. worldwide by 2050 compared to 2020 with the aim of reducing dependence on gas and coal.

The announcement was presented by John Kerry, the US climate envoy, along with a number of leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Other signatory countries include Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Ghana, Japan, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine, South Korea and the United Kingdom. However, it is striking that two of the world’s most important nuclear power plant builders, China and Russia, are missing.

John Kerry explained: “The declaration recognizes the key role of nuclear energy in achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and in maintaining the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” adding: “We know from science, facts and evidence that we cannot achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.” Without using nuclear energy.

According to French President Emmanuel Macron, nuclear energy, including small modular reactors, is an “indispensable solution” to combat climate change.

The signatory countries also asked shareholders in international financial institutions such as the World Bank to include nuclear energy in their financing. Meanwhile, Belgium announced that it will organize the first global nuclear summit in March 2024, in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The goal of the meeting, announced by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, is to reach net-zero emissions targets by mid-century.

It’s Italy? Speaking on the topic of nuclear energy, Giorgia Meloni stated, “I think we have to be very practical and non-ideological, and I have no restrictions on any technology that might be safe and could help us diversify our energy production.” The president of the Forza Italia group in the room, Paolo Barelli, also intervened in the discussion: “The primary energy source – which can guarantee the complete independence of our country – is nuclear energy.”

Of course, what is the fact that must be taken into account: Italy is backward due to the ideological veto imposed in the past.

In any case, the demand for increased nuclear energy production by twenty important countries already represents a heavy blow to ideological environmentalism, but its arrival during the UN Climate Change Conference represents a real slap in the face of the red and green environmental prescriptions. .