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“We need nuclear energy” to meet global goals for fighting and slowing climate change, Mr Sarkozy said in opening the International Conference on Access to Civil Nuclear Energy in Paris today.
Mr Sarkozy said: “I do not understand why international financial institutions and development banks do not finance civil nuclear energy projects. The current situation means that countries are condemned to rely on more costly energy that causes greater pollution.”
He urged the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other development banks to make “a wholehearted commitment” to financing nuclear energy projects.
He also highlighted the “problem” of allocating carbon credits through clean development technologies. He said outdated ideology means that a country developing civil nuclear energy cannot obtain carbon credits.
“Therefore, I propose that CO2 credits be used to finance all forms of decarbonised energy under a new global architecture after 2013,” he said.
Mr Sarkozy said: “The important task today is to send the world a message about our shared determination to make civil nuclear energy a tool for peace, cooperation and prosperity.”
He said the “quasi-theological opposition” between nuclear energy and renewable resources is out of date.
“We need both. Of course, nuclear energy cannot reverse climate change on its own, but it will be necessary.”
Mr Sarkozy called for an “enhanced” International Atomic Energy Agency with broader powers and with a kind of scoreboard to rate international reactors on safety.
He also spoke of the need to make sure the nuclear energy industry had adequate human resources.
He said he had decided to step up France’s efforts by creating an international nuclear energy institute that will include an international nuclear energy school.
The school would offer high quality education at the nuclear sites of Saclay and Cadarache.
The two-day conference is organised by the French government in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
Sarkozy Announces Plans For Third EPR In France (News No. 18, 9 February 2009)
France Set To Invest EUR 1 Billion In Generation IV R&D (News in Brief No. 168 23 December 2009)
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