Walking around the COP, have you already met the ‘wolf in the sheep’s clothing’? The people who dress in green and call themselves ‘climate heroes’, asking everyone to sign their petition? Read the small text. They are promoting another extractive industry, which, just like coal, burns a fuel. In addition to this, it destroys the land for thousands of years. Indeed, these are the uranium lobbyists. Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Ac-cording to the World Information Service Energy (WISE), almost 80% of the uranium supplying the world’s nuclear power plants is mined on indigenous territories with terri-ble human rights violations. But the good news is that today a new scientific research report is being presented at COP24 at a press conference this morning. The main point of this report is that nuclear has a much longer climate shadow than what nuclear lobbyists have claimed. It is time for that ‘emperor’ nuclear to be shown as it is: a nude, false pathway. In particular, public money is being used for subsidising the entire industry, as well as the pronuclear UN consultancy, which hides under the name of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We continue to fund them to promote their private business interests with billions of dollars. Money is lost for the urgently needed fast energy transition to 100% renewables. Instead the UN should be protecting the human rights of the most vulnerable: Indigenous Peoples, people of color and with low income who are those targeted by uranium mining and nuclear waste. Clearly, the IAEA is not fulfilling its role of protection. Stop the fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies.
