Recipe for a greener Europe : the way to renewable energy

In an interview with café babel, German MP Herman Scheer argues that the energy legislation passed in his country has created a dynamic which spells the end for atomic energy and fossil fuels.

Abstract:

Despite being a member of the Bundestag (the German Parliament), the Social Democrat Herman Scheer does not shy away from criticising his party colleagues when it comes to defending his belief in renewable energy. Scheer, who is also the President of ‘Eurosolar’ and Chairman of the World Council for renewable energy, has called the Government’s block to setting up an international agency for renewable energy a scandal. However, positive impulses are coming from Germany – such as the Renewable Energy Sources Act, which will force a change in the power supply. 

For years now you have been calling for a change in energy production. However, nuclear energy is booming and the per-capita consumption of fossil fuels is increasing constantly worldwide. Are you a lone voice crying in the wilderness? 
No, I’m not alone in the wilderness – to use the same metaphor. You could, perhaps, say that I’m standing in a wilderness that is constantly broadening due to the consequences of conventional energy consumption. The worldwide use of fossil fuels is increasing massively despite what we know about the consequences. Thank God we don’t yet have a boom in nuclear energy, although we do unfortunately have a boom in the rhetoric for nuclear energy.

But nuclear plants are being increasingly favoured by (fast) developing countries…
No, they are talked in to this. Unfortunately, in Asian countries there are plants being built now. This is connected with the fact that international institutions are based on the promotion of atomic and fossil fuels. The unmistakeable problems and boundaries of these forms of energy, including their dangerous nature, are being ignored. The structure is anachronistic: there is the International Energy Agency for fossil fuel safety, which plays an advisory and supportive roll, and there is the International Atomic Energy Agency, which advises governments worldwide on the development of their nuclear programmes. Both agencies systematically leave out information concerning renewable energy when talking to the different states. This anachronism is a political scandal.

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Please click here to read the full version of this interview on café babel‘s website.