UN Climate Change Talks Highlight The Need for Nuclear Energy
Nuclear Energy Vital to Reducing Greenhouse Gases Worldwide
WASHINGTON, DC, September 26, 2007 – The Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy) applauds the UN’s climate change summit on Monday and the importance it attached to the role of nuclear energy in meeting the world’s future energy demand.
In a bold call to action, French President Nicholas Sarkozy challenged the world’s biggest polluters to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least half by 2050. He urged his fellow world leaders to consider the use of nuclear energy in their own countries. In the U.S. alone, energy consumption is expected to rise by 40 percent by 2030 and nuclear energy is emerging as a vital part of the solution for meeting future energy demand while not further harming the environment.
At a separate State Department briefing on Monday, President George W. Bush’s chief environmental advisor, James Connaughton, emphasized the U.S. administration’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gases, and highlighted the importance of nuclear energy in that process. “You cannot get from here to there without a lot of nuclear power being added to the mix,” Connaughton said. “We need more renewables, we need second generation bio-fuels, we need efficiency (targets); we need all of it, and nuclear is an important piece of that.”
