atw 2017-12

atw Vol. 62 (2017) | Issue 12 ı December
Technology First, Please!
Dear reader, if there were mathematical evaluations for international politics the reversed proportionality between
success and number of participants would surely be an ascertain principle...
In particular this accounts for international political
conferences. Often incomprehensible for outsiders many
opinions of diverse stakeholders clash. If it is all possible
opinions which are being discussed is anyone`s guess.
Partly the host segregates himself partly the stakeholder
segregate themselves. Increasing difficulty in generating
good results is inevitable while the press focuses rather on
bad news.
In this sense one of the biggest events so far was the
UN summit for sustainable development end of August
2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Nearly 60.000
delegates, representatives of NGOs and further representatives
of the public and of the press gathered to
discuss and refine „Agenda 21“ which was resolved upon
in Rio de Janeiro.
The term „sustainability“ was established as concept
of the future ten years earlier. The objective was to
develop the world equitably in ecological, economical
and social concerns and to improve quality of life.
The term „sustainability“ also dominantly shaped many
political demands respectively measures and was
encountered more than just daily.
Today, 25 years, a quarter of a century later,
“ sustainability“ is remarkably less common and the specific
question concerning the “sustainability balance” arises, a
rather disillusioning one.
It was certainly a mistake to not fill the term
“ sustainability” with content from the beginning, but to
leave it to an ongoing discussion. It was more or less
a diffuse word re-invention, which was open to any
kind of interpretation.
Thus the doors were opened to those social groups
that announce abstinence through their sophisticated
press strategies as well as awareness-raising activities and
set the focus especially on energy supply. Targets such
as to reduce the future global energy consumption and
this exclusively on the basis of “renewable” energy, were
propagated.
It was hardly recognized that these coercive measures
recalled further targets on balance, fairness and social
further development. Only a few persons were sitting at
the negotiation tables, which were fighting on a daily basis
for their existence or for whom an affordable and available
energy as a component of their livelihood are and were
of top priority. It might sound paradoxical, but eventually
this demand can only be solved, by increasing the
worldwide energy consumption, which is today also
acknowledged as reality.
In the meantime, international politics found another
efficient tool to control nuclear politics: climate change
caused by humans as well as related and as necessary
considered reduction of climate-impacting emissions.
Especially carbon dioxide emissions from power generation
were consequently set into focus. It was the Kyoto
Protocol of the climate change conference in 1997 which
was supposed to set standards with a reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions of the industrial countries
until 2012 and later until 2020.
In November of this year around 25,000 participants
finally met at the current climate change conference in
Bonn, Germany, in order to concretise the agreed decisions
that were made two years before in Paris. Also the results
of this current meeting are rather disenchanting, certainly
also because the contribution of technology in order to
solve future tasks was hardly treated or recognised: today
448 nuclear power plants worldwide are operating or
ready for operation.
In the past year 2016 they generated around
2,500 billion-kilowatt hours of electricity. Thus, they
did not only significantly contribute to supply safety as
well as stable, favourable electricity prices within the
nuclear energy using countries, they also avoided around
2,500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – more
than twice as much as all political agreements and
announcements regarding the Kyoto Protocols set as –
never achieved – targets.
Christopher Weßelmann
– Editor in Chief –
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EDITORIAL
Editorial
Technology First, Please!