2023-09-28 14:09:12
France and 20 other countries have called for easier financing of nuclear power and its equal status with renewable energies. They call for “the financing of nuclear power to be taken into account from the perspective of energy security and climate protection,” said a statement published in Paris on Thursday. The signatories include the energy ministers of France, Canada, Japan, Great Britain and the USA.
Possible EU subsidies are also indirectly addressed. The aim of this “political alliance” is to “facilitate access to capital” in order to maintain, build new nuclear power plants or store nuclear waste. “Nuclear energy is safe, cheap, available and one of the low-emission energy sources,” emphasize the signatories, who met in Paris on the initiative of France and the OECD.
Therefore, financial institutions should classify nuclear energy “in the same way as other zero- and low-emission energy sources,” they emphasize. Nuclear power should be taken into account more than before in the environmental and social goals (ESG) of financial institutions.
“We need to be pragmatic and quick to take advantage of the window of opportunity that is opening up,” said William D. Magwood of the OECD’s Atomic Energy Agency (NEA). “Nuclear energy is an important asset for our energy security, but also for our climate commitments,” added French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
Germany was not represented at the conference. Italy, which abandoned nuclear power nearly 40 years ago and is currently considering a U-turn, was present as an observer.
With 56 nuclear reactors per 68 million inhabitants, France is the country with the highest proportion of nuclear power. France regularly clashes with Germany at EU level when it calls for nuclear power to be put on the same level as renewable energies.
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