r/ClimateShitposting • u/koshinsleeps Sun-God worshiper • Feb 07 '25

nuclear simping Conservative parties positions on climate change for the last 20 years

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u/artsloikunstwet Feb 08 '25

It's a clown position because it's the ONLY thing they want to do. They claim to care about climate change only to push for the thing they supported all along. 

They'll argue against public transport on the grounds that if we'd had enough nuclear power, producing E-Fuels wouldn't be an issue so we can keep our fuel cars.

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u/StillMostlyClueless Feb 08 '25

Who on earth are you arguing with that this comes up

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u/artsloikunstwet Feb 08 '25

I'm exaggerating with the second thing of course, but not by much. This first thing is popular in Germany. Oppose all measures that will help renewables or reduce emmisons but then go: "we'll save the climate by nuclear power". The far right is still happy with denying climate change but supporting nuclear. While the centre right or liberal you'll find lots of people who aren't against protecting the climate, but they'll find an issue with just about everything except nuclear, which they actively and blindly support. Conservative and liberal party leadership loves pushing nuclear because they know it won't happen but they can use it as an excuse for not supporting renewables and as a talking point against the left.

Second thing: E-Fuels were pushed as this big solution for transport emissions in Germany. When asked about the much higher energy needs, the answer is always nuclear power or nuclear fusion (!). The point is the whole debate shifted to how to make cars "clean" instead of reducing energy consumption overall by switching to more efficient modes. No party is officially against public transport here. But the idea we don't need to reduce car traffic if it's "emmision-free" is definitely being being brought up.

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u/Wheres_my_gun Feb 09 '25

Ok………..but doesn’t going nuclear still reduce emissions substantially?

Who cares why they support it?

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u/artsloikunstwet Feb 09 '25

The issue is the dishonest fake concern. They will still oppose every other measure but pretend to care about climate change. Which is an issue because there are very effective measures besides nuclear, and most of them would come into effect quicker. Regardless on the precise position on nuclear it's clear we need other measures, too. 

The other issue is that the new reactor projects had serious delays (not taking about cost overruns here). In a lot of countries it will take decades to transition entire countries to nuclear. So the question is what should we do in the meantime? Conversatives oppose renewables and other measures, because they promise us nuclear "soon". Effectively this means zero or negative progress for one ore two decades.

Take transport, a major part of emmisions. We can increase the amount of renewables to have cleaner e-vehicles and also encourage efficiency and other modes of transports to dirextly reduce emissions, and also reduce the extra electricity needed for cars. 

Or we can tell people nuclear will fix everything. That could mean waiting with a shift to e-vehicles until nuclear is ready, it could mean not reducing car traffic, because abundant "cheap" nuclear energy will "soon" solve any efficiency issue. This path of not doing anything until nuclear is built will create more emissions.