Don’t nuke the climate
– European statement against nuclear power and for climate justice
In the midst of the climate crisis the nuclear lobby advertises nuclear power as a supposedly easy solution to the climate problem. As activists from climate justice and anti-nuclear movements all over Europe, we know that this is utterly wrong. We therefore declare:
The fight for climate justice is a fight against the status quo. Nuclear power is part of the political and economic system that is leading us towards multiple catastrophes.
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- There is no such thing as ‘civil’ nuclear power – nuclear energy is and has always been closely connected to military use.
- The nuclear industry continues a centuries-long tradition of violent colonialism and deepening inequality, both in the Global South and in the Global North.
- Nuclear energy ignores human rights and rights of nature – for example by violating indigenous land rights.
- Nuclear power embodies a centralized and anti-democratic relation to energy usage, that prevents energy democracy with real democratic debate on energy production, distribution and consumption.
- Nuclear power is premised on the assumption of continued economic growth which is fundamentally unsustainable.
- Nuclear power will never be able to stop the climate crisis: it is dirty, slow, expensive, and dangerous for all living beings on Earth, including plants and animals – not least present and future generations of humans.
- Nuclear power distracts from the transformation we want and need, and it hinders the necessary transition to a just and sustainable energy system based on renewables, thus worsening the climate crisis.
Nuclear power shows the fundamental injustices on which our societies are constructed. In sum, it embodies everything we oppose in global industrial capitalism. This is why we, a diverse group of collectives fighting for climate justice, declare our opposition to nuclear power.