atw - International Journal for Nuclear Power | 03.2020

atw Vol. 65 (2020) | Issue 3 ı March
Silver Jubilee, but not even a Second Place at the End:
The UN Climate Change Conference 2019
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Dear reader, having been ousted from the front headlines of the media in the meantime and hardly noticed by them,
the 25 th UN Climate Change Conference, officially “25 th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on
Climate Change and 15 th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP – Conference of the Parties)” as well as
the “4 th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement” took place
in the first weeks of December 2019. The COP is the annual conference as the highest body of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In this international agreement, states have committed
themselves to reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases.
EDITORIAL
This multinational meeting did not augur well for 2019 in
organisational terms: Brazil withdrew its offer to host the
conference because of “financial constraints and a change
of government”. As a result, the President of Chile and his
Minister for the Environment invited to the country's
capital, Santiago de Chile, in December 2019 or January
2020. Due to the political situation in the country, with
protests by citizens against, among other things, economic
and social policies, Chile also had to withdraw its invitation.
As a third option, Spain stepped in with Madrid as
host, with the political leadership remaining with the
Chilean government.
According to official figures, believe it or not, between
25,000 and 26,000 direct participants in the conferences
found their way to Madrid under the motto “Tiempo De
Actura/Time for Action”.
The central theme and goal was the completion of the
supplementary set of rules to the “Paris Convention”. But
what had been ambitiously heralded, at least in terms of its
title, ended up with commentators using terms ranging
from “minimum consensus” to “inconclusive”. The reasons
for this are certainly complex. For one thing, the
increasingly negative attitude towards emission bans, by
countries with high emissions is contributing to this. On
the other hand, there is also the fact that the conference is
becoming more and more like a showcase for individual
political interests or NGO representatives, and that the
focus is less and less on visible issues and more on bans.
Moreover, there seems to be an increasing lack of visions
for the implementation of emission reductions.
The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol
ended in the shadow of the conference, as the minimum
number of ratifications had not been reached by the end of
November 2019.
Let us recall that the 1992 Kyoto Protocol had the
objective of reducing emissions of the six gases classified as
particularly climate-affecting – mainly carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrogen oxides – by approximately 5 percent
worldwide in the period 2008–2012, based on the base
year 1990. In terms of carbon dioxide emissions, with
emissions of around 21 billion tonnes in 1990, this meant a
reduction of around 1 billion tonnes of annual emissions.
The indivi dual signatory states have committed themselves
to different emission levels. For example, the EU-15
at the time pro mised to make a contribution of minus
8 percent. In 2012, at the end of the Kyoto period, CO 2
emissions worldwide then stood at around 32 billion
tonnes, which corresponds to an increase of 51 % and not
the targeted 5 % reduction.
If a political goal is not achieved, a new one is agreed. In
view of the “Kyoto I failure”, the struggle for new targets,
then lasted five years, from the UN climate conference in
Bali in 2007 to the one in Doha, Qatar in 2012. It ended
with a so-called second commitment period (“Kyoto II”).
However, while “Kyoto I” still contained figures on
reduction targets, “Kyoto II” is becoming more and more
lost in emissions trading. But ultimately “Kyoto II” is only
historical and without any effect.
All in all, from Kyoto to Santiago de Chile/Madrid, after
25 years of political discussions about emission reductions,
little can be identified that would allow a ranking at all.
Irrespective of the question of whether and to what
extent mankind's influence on the climate is significant,
any use of sustainable forms of energy makes sense.
At this point the question arises whether nuclear energy
is at all capable of significantly contributing to reductions?
After all, nuclear energy is currently increasingly coming into
focus as a building block for future energy supply. In view
of the enormous challenges not only to reduce emissions in
all sectors, but also to supply a growing world population
with sufficient energy, the question arises as to what potential
exists.
So let the facts speak for themselves: In recent years,
nuclear energy has accounted for around 11 percent of the
world's electricity supply. Approximately 2,500 billion
kilowatt hours are generated annually. Nuclear power
plant operation itself is largely free of climate-impacting
emissions. Well-founded, comprehensible studies show
total emissions of 6 to 30 grams of carbon dioxide per
kilowatt hour of electricity generated, taking into account
all process steps for the construction, operation and
decommissioning of nuclear power plants. This means that
hydropower, wind and nuclear energy are virtually on a
par. The annual CO 2 emissions avoided by nuclear power
are around 2.5 billion tonnes and thus higher – more than
twice as high – than the Kyoto I target, but never reached.
These concrete figures shall make it clear that nuclear
technology can be used to achieve a wide range of
structured goals such as reducing emissions and a reliable
energy supply.
All in all, low-emission technologies for, all energy
sources, must be equally important and not via ideologically
influenced “single- track” paths, which for
example, deliberately exclude nuclear energy, as is
unfortunately happening in some places at European level
in particular.
If the global community is serious about truely
implementing the ambitious climate protection targets,
the use of nuclear energy will certainly be unavoidable.
Christopher Weßelmann
– Editor in Chief –
Editorial
Silver Jubilee, but not even a Second Place at the End: The UN Climate Change Conference 2019