Nuclear storm gathers as climate change experts meet

BANGKOK (AFP) – Few issues are as divisive as nuclear power, and the furore over its use threatens to resurface as leading scientists meet in Thailand to thrash out a plan to reduce the impact of climate change.

Nuclear supporters hail it a “clean” energy that will help lessen the world’s dependence on the polluting fossil fuels, gas, oil and coal, which spew damaging greenhouse gasses into the air and drive global warming.


The potential of nuclear energy to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions is expected to be mentioned in a report being drawn up in Bangkok this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s top authority on the issue.

“There has so far been a tendency both at the IPCC and (Kyoto Protocol talks) to duck the nuclear issue, but they will not be able to duck it forever,” said Malcolm Grimston, a nuclear policy expert and associate fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House.

AFP