U.N. official blasts nuclear option for global warming
By Matt Daily

THE HAGUE, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations Environment Programme on Tuesday blasted proposals to include nuclear energy options as a means to slow global warming.

"I'm utterly convinced that it should not be included in any type of (agreement)," the U.N.'s Klaus Toepfer told reporters during the UN sponsored talks in The Hague to slow global warming.

The nuclear power industry has painted itself as the good guy at international talks, arguing that nuclear reactors are clean and produce no carbon dioxide.

The United States and Japan have said they would back plans allowing them to fund nuclear projects in developing countries as part of a global effort to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the gases widely blamed for global warming.

But environmentalists have attacked that stance and point to the longer-term problems of nuclear waste and safety.

The two-week conference is trying to hammer out a deal to put flesh on the bones of an agreement on emissions reductions reached in the Japanese city of Kyoto three years ago.

The United States and Japan favour the nuclear option as this would earn them credits towards meeting their own emissions reduction targets set at Kyoto.

Although the United Nations Environment Programme, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is not an official participant in the talks, it could play an important role in how projects are carried out. The body funds clean energy projects in developing lands and operates educational programmes designed to protect the environment.

Scientists estimate that the Earth's temperature could rise by as much as six degrees centigrade (11 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next 100 years, raising sea levels and causing extreme storms, such as those that have ravaged parts of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America in recent months.

Industrialised nations agreed in Kyoto to cut greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008 to 2014, although a number of "flexible mechanisms" were set out to allow them cheaper options than having to change deeply entrenched energy usage at home.

One of those is technology transfer, where developed nations help build and run clean energy projects in poorer countries.

Other methods include trading in emissions credits, or "hot air" trading, where countries that can meet their Kyoto targets sell their spare capacity to those falling short.

Toepfer said he preferred clean coal projects in developing nations as a way of reducing reliance on brown coal.

"We should do whatever is possible. We know we can increase (coal) efficiency," he said.

"It can do quite a lot (to reduce emissions) in the short or medium term."

11-21-00