Why we must keep our nuclear options open

BusinessEurope’s president tells Simon Taylor that business is fully behind efforts to tackle climate change. But he insists that policymakers must not shy away from nuclear energy.

European businesses are firmly behind the EU’s approach to tackling climate change but nuclear power is an essential part of the strategy to reduce CO2 emissions, according to Ernest-Antoine Seillière, president of BusinessEurope, the European employers’ organisation.

Seillière says BusinessEurope’s members are "very supportive" of the EU’s approach to tackling climate change even though in the past they had been "sceptical or defensive".

The former head of the French employers’ federation MEDEF says that three things are needed to fight climate change: regulation; research and development; and international agreements. The EU had provided regulation in the form of precise obligations including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Second, there had to be efforts on technical innovation to control CO2 pollution. Seillère says that innovation could spur growth as new technologies were developed to adapt to lower and more efficient energy consumption. Finally, European companies were fully convinced of the need for international agreements. "Businesses say we absolutely need an extension of what’s been done in Europe to the rest of the world", the BusinessEurope president says. Otherwise, jobs and growth could be harmed by the effect on competitiveness and the EU’s contribution to tackling climate change, in isolation, would be "insignificant". Seillière says there are different ways to achieve this, either by a major new international agreement, adding to the "patchwork of national initiatives to ensure the efforts of others are at the same level as those of the European" or concentrate on a sectoral approach. This could mean, for example, ensuring energy-intensive production is done everywhere under the same conditions. Otherwise, production would simply move to places where there was no regulation to reduce harm to the environment, which would undermine the efforts to reduce such effects, Seillière says.

He admits that getting developing countries to sign up to cutting emissions will be tricky in the negotiations. "Some countries say you [developed countries] have polluted to get to where you are. We’ll talk about it when we get to that level," he says. But that would also undermine efforts to tackle climate change as an increasing share of production will be carried out in emerging economies. But he sees openness from some developing countries. "The Chinese are taking climate change very seriously", he says. This can offer business opportunities, he adds, citing the example of selling them carbon capture technologies.

Seillière also sees encouraging movement in the US position. "In state after state, the consciousness of citizens is moving closer to the consciousness of Europe", he says, citing California as a particular example. He also refers to Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness about climate change, comments by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and even a willingness by President George W. Bush to discuss the issue by hosting an international forum in the US.

Seillière says that BusinessEurope strongly supports the aim of obtaining 20% of the EU’s energy from renewable sources but insists that nuclear power must be part of the EU’s strategy. "We doubt that 20% of energy from renewables by 2020 is achievable if we don’t consider nuclear energy. A number of governments are reluctant but as businesses we share the view that nuclear energy has to be developed".

BusinessEurope’s president tells Simon Taylor that business is fully behind efforts to tackle climate change. But he insists that policymakers must not shy away from nuclear energy.