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BY REP. FRENCH HILL (R-ARK.), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
But hidden in this strategy, such as it is, lies one idea of consequence, and that is the president's goal to finance lower emissions in developing countries through organizations like the World Bank. While the Bank already seeks to do this, its hands have been tied in an area where it could make an enormous difference: nuclear energy. For the president's climate plan to be serious, it should prioritize nuclear support through the Bank and the other multilateral lenders where the U.S. is a top shareholder.
While rich countries' carbon output is largely flat, the developing world's emissions are only projected to grow unchecked. The U.S. and Europe, responsible for nearly all emissions at the turn of the 20th century, now only account for one third. Wealthy nations may be the loudest voices in climate activism, but the future will be decided elsewhere, and it won't be an especially prosperous one if we insist that poorer societies power their way up the income scale with renewables alone. Nuclear will be essential for their energy mix.
Although its reputation in the United States suffers from memories of Three Mile Island, a 1979 accident as haunting as the bell bottoms of that era (but just as harmless to human life), nuclear energy is a mainstream power source providing 30 percent of the world's low-carbon electricity. The main risks connected with nuclear arise when retreating from it, not embracing it. For instance, after a 2011 tsunami hit Japan's Fukushima reactor, leading the country to temporarily take its nuclear power plants offline, fossil fuel usage and electricity prices surged, resulting in more deaths for the country than from the disaster itself. Researchers have shown that Germany overreacted to Fukushima too, shutting down some of its reactors and incurring $12 billion in social costs each year, mostly through increased mortality from higher levels of air pollution. //
Though the World Bank left nuclear finance decades ago, its own anti-poverty mission makes its return a no-brainer. The governments that act as the Bank's shareholders have already compelled it to quit upstream oil and gas projects in the developing world, even as the Bank pursues a goal of universal access to electricity. This makes little sense. If the World Bank has to surrender its expertise in fossil fuel lending, surely it can restore its know-how in nuclear finance.