Yesterday was World Environment Day. Recently in India for a ‘Carbon Bazaar’ organised jointly by Germany and India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests, FRANZJOSEF SCHAUFHAUSEN, Deputy Director General of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, spoke to NEHA SINHA on Indo-German co-operation on climate change, nuclear energy, and the responsibility of the developed world on emission cuts.

•Some countries, including India which has just signed a major nuclear energy treaty, believe that nuclear energy, which is not heavily carbon-intensive, should be included in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects for earning carbon credits. As part of a ministry which deals with both nuclear safety and environment, what is your position on this?

In Germany, 22 per cent of power comes from nuclear energy. But Germany is trying to phase out nuclear energy and we don’t support nuclear energy becoming CDM projects. We have scientific studies on the table showing that it is possible to have a future without nuclear energy. We had a very long discussion in Germany on nuclear energy. The question now is not whether nuclear energy is clean, but is it sustainable to provide power? The position of the German government is that nuclear energy is too risky. At the moment in Europe, we don’t have the possibility to store the very dangerous nuclear waste which is produced from nuclear energy. Also uranium is limited. We have to construct an energy future working with energy efficiency and renewable energy.

•As a developed country, and also as part of the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme, what is your perspective on developed countries taking the harshest cuts to combat climate change? What are your hopes from the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Summit?

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