COP26 – We. Are. Big. – Day 1

It’s Monday and COP26 finally got underway, I had some good discussions and did some interviewing at the Nuclear for Climate booth in the Blue Zone. Nothing special, apart from a giant gummy bear and somehow us getting misinformed about the timing and/or place of Greta Thurnberg’s speech, which we tried to go see but miserably failed.

The one thing that struck me, after attending these conferences since 2015, is the change. We had almost nobody coming to complain to us about our presence. In previous COP’s, the ”established” environmental/anti-nuclear organisations and the people working in them went out of their way to disregard and belittle us. It was much harder to get good conversations going regarding nuclear energy’s potential in climate mitigation.

In Paris, there was merely a handful of us (and still we were branded as ”the industry lobby”, which was sad both for us as we didn’t get a penny for our work, and sad for the nuclear industry if is really would have been the best they could do to send a couple poor writers as their ”lobby”, while in truth they didn’t even do that – not that they would have been welcome anyway, given that nuclear trade groups have been kicked out from COP’s time and time again while even fossil fuels have been welcomed.

Now, though, now we are many. When 6 years ago there was a few, now there are dozens of young activists and professionals, willing to give their face to the struggle. Our struggle for a more sensible and effective climate and energy policy. My heart is bursting with joy and pride. ❤

And we have more and more support, more and more good discussions with interested people, people finally asking the all too important question we have been asking for years: ”Why is a proven tool like nuclear excluded from the climate toolkit? Why is Germany and others abandoning it, and to what end?”

And if you remember Bonn, where we handed out hundreds of bananas with information stickers on them to other visitors and delegates, the stay tuned, as the Banana-Squad is back…