COP28 climate summit: Scottish Greens' superstitious dread of nuclear power is damaging efforts to cut carbon emissions – Paul Wilson

A route to net zero that does not involve nuclear would adversely affect almost every aspect of our lives

Let’s face it. We’re not going to hit our carbon emissions targets. The way we’re going, we’re not even going to get anywhere close. Fossil fuels still account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s energy use and the amount we consume is rising, seemingly no matter how much we binge on wind turbines and solar panels.

The US Energy Information Administration projects global, energy-related, carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise over the next 30 years. For as long as we continue to indulge the expensive fantasy that, with current technology, wind and solar can adequately replace fossil fuels, the only route to net zero is through radically reducing the world’s energy consumption. But voters are unlikely to embrace moves to drive this back down towards “pre-industrial” levels – the days when we could expect to live into our 30s instead of our 80s.

It is no coincidence that life expectancy, living standards, prosperity, and general health, wealth and well-being have risen in tandem with fossil-fuelled energy consumption since the start of the Industrial Revolution. It enables us to survive and to thrive. As this realisation slowly dawns, and warnings of impending apocalypse continue, many countries are now turning to the nuclear option.

Scottish Green minister Patrick Harvie, seen with other anti-nuclear activists blocking an entrance to the Faslane naval base in 2015, is resolute in his opposition to nuclear energy (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

In meeting rooms at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last week, 22 nations including the UK, the US, Canada and France pledged to triple their nuclear capacity in order to drive down the use of fossil fuels. But, outside, the memo clearly didn’t reach First Minister Humza Yousaf as he photobombed his way around the conference hall.

In Scotland, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie – who, somehow, is a minister in Yousaf’s administration – used a TV interview on Sunday to explain patiently why nuclear is not the answer and the Scottish Government will continue to oppose it. Nuclear is “expensive and takes a long time to build”, he said, before embarking on the usual promise of “green jobs” to come if only we stick with the programme.

Of course, he is correct in that, without changes to the way our energy market is regulated, building up our nuclear capacity will be expensive, time-consuming and bogged down in red tape. That’s why we pretty much stopped building nuclear power stations years ago. But things are only this way because we have made them so. Which begs the question: why?

Nuclear is easily the most promising alternative to fossil fuels. It emits no carbon dioxide and has a strong safety track record. The lifespan of a nuclear power plant far exceeds the 20 or 25 years of wind turbines and solar panels. People fear nuclear’s worst-case scenario but it has already happened, in the USSR of the 1980s. Technology and safety measures have moved on considerably since Ukraine in 1986.

Apart from Chernobyl, no one has died as a result of nuclear accidents. Thousands died at Fukushima but they were killed by the tsunami rather than radiation. No one died at Three Mile Island. The number of deaths attributable to Chernobyl is the subject of debate but is thought to be around 60 so far. Although tragic, this is nowhere near the numbers of deaths globally each year caused by air pollution. It is likely more people have died in the construction and maintenance of wind turbines.

We should already be living through the nuclear age. But the bright optimism that first surrounded the technology was replaced at some point in the countercultural shifts of the 1960s or 1970s with a kind of dread superstition. People started to associate nuclear energy with nuclear weapons. Nuclear energy? Sounds kinda heavy, man. Sounds like ‘nuclear bomb!’

One old hippie who begged to differ was Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who left the organisation over its position and accused the environmental movement in general of having “abandoned science and logic in favour of emotion and sensationalism”. In a recent interview, Moore argued that nuclear power should replace fossil fuels where feasible, adding: “We have no reason to be against nuclear energy other than prejudice and stupidity.”

Another convert is Hollywood director Oliver Stone, whose latest film, a documentary named Nuclear Now, is billed as exploring “the possibility of overcoming the challenges of climate change and energy poverty through the power of nuclear energy”. The multi-Oscar winner recently said: “I was a young man in the 70s and 80s. I believed what Jane Fonda was saying, and Ralph Nader, and Bruce Springsteen. They were heroes – so I went along with it. But as the situation deepened and the years went by… it’s been 20 years since the year 2000, and still, 84 per cent of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels.”

U2 frontman Bono, a long-time campaigner against nuclear plants, has also changed his tune. Earlier this year, he said: “Regular nuclear energy is getting safer and smarter and we’ve campaigned against nuclear energy but we have kind of turned around a little bit on that one.” Even climate crusader Greta Thunberg seems markedly less down on nuclear than Harvie. In an interview on German TV last year, she said of nuclear power plants: “I feel that it’s a mistake to close them down to focus on coal.”

On this issue, as on so much else, it is Harvie who is out of step with voters. Yousaf should see him for the electoral liability he is and part company. A route to net zero that does not involve nuclear would entail a complete restructuring of society to reduce our energy consumption radically. It would adversely affect almost every aspect of our lives – how we travel, what we eat, where we go. Perhaps that’s just the way Harvie would like it. But, to me at least, it really does sound kinda heavy.