Belgium’s Energy Policy and Cognitive Dissonance: Fossil Fuels vs. Nuclear Power

2023-12-12 06:41:16

Does Belgium want to get out of fossil fuels? Does Belgium want to get out of nuclear power? In the middle of COP28, Ecolo and the MR are displaying their differences. As a result, understanding the Belgian policy of transition to carbon-free energy is a matter of cognitive dissonance.

Ecological Corpse

Concerning Ecolo, the corpse is called nuclear. This COP28 was marked by a photo, that of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo with around twenty other leaders calling for tripling nuclear power by 2050. Belgium is not a signatory to the call, but our country will host in March, three months before the elections, a world summit with these countries and the International Nuclear Energy Agency. The aim of the summit, according to the IAEA, is to revive nuclear power to reduce the use of fossil fuels, strengthen energy security and stimulate economic development.

However, it will not have escaped your notice that Belgium has officially decided to say goodbye to the atom. We still have an exit law, staunchly supported by the Greens. Cognitive dissonance therefore, because Belgium will host this world conference to relaunch nuclear power, but Belgium is also preparing to extend two reactors and is investing hundreds of millions of euros in nuclear research, while having an exit law from nuclear. It’s difficult to hide such a corpse in the closet for Ecolo who will have to develop treasures of arguments during the campaign…

Corpse MR

In the MR’s closet, the corpse is a fossil. Yesterday, surprisingly, Deputy Prime Minister David Clarinval launched a full-blown attack on Zakia Khattabi, Green Minister of Climate present at COP28. He criticizes him for having supported a position calling for an exit from fossil fuels and the gradual elimination of fossil fuel subsidies.

The minister, Clarinval, presents himself as a defender of the fossil subsidies that he himself listed to be sure to reach his audience: company cars, reduced excise duties on professional fuel, social tariff for energy. 12 billion per year, anyway.

This pro-fossil projection also stems from cognitive dissonance. Because the MR is indeed in the government of a state, Belgium. And it is Belgium as a state, and not Zakia Khattabi, which with several other countries (Spain, France, the Netherlands) decided to support the principle of a gradual exit from fossil subsidies. The European Union is also defending a similar position at COP28.

Official support for the MR fossil is therefore in contradiction with the strategy of Belgium and the Union. And just as strangely, this support for fossil fuels is in contradiction with the party’s position on the development of nuclear power. The best way to develop nuclear power is to stop subsidies that give fossil fuels a competitive advantage, the IEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, continues to say.

Consistency

The more the campaign progresses, the more consistency recedes. And the worst thing is that we can expect throughout the campaign that Ecolo and the MR will throw their corpses in each other’s faces. Here’s your nuclear! Here’s your fossil! You’ll have to get used to seeing corpses flying.

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