19 June 2024

NUCLEAR NOT A CLIMATE SOLUTION FOR AUSTRALIA

The World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia has long advocated for Australia to tackle the climate crisis by seizing the massive opportunity we have to become the world's leading exporter of renewable energy.

“Australia is rapidly transitioning towards becoming a renewable energy superpower. Nuclear is not a climate or energy solution for Australia on any measure,” said Dermot O’Gorman, WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer.

“Nuclear is decades away and would never be built in time to achieve the level of emissions reductions we need to see in the next decade.

“Australians can’t afford to wait until beyond the 2040s to decarbonise our energy system. We need to reduce all our emissions to net zero well before 2040 and realise the benefits of low cost, renewable energy to households and industry,” he said.

The Australian Energy Market Operator, the experts in this field, along with our top science agency the CSIRO, released a report just this month, showing that nuclear would be vastly more costly than renewables.

“Government-owned nuclear power stations is a proposal to nationalise electricity production at great expense to Australian taxpayers, and at enormous risk to our climate and the environment,” said Mr O’Gorman.

“Listen to the markets, look at what global capital is doing, and let’s all get back to a serious, sensible discussion about how Australia can embrace the once-in-a-century, nation-building opportunity, which all Australians can rally around, of becoming a renewable energy superpower”.