Do we need more nuclear power to help deal with climate change?

The Inquiry

• Episode: Do we need more nuclear power to help deal with climate change?
• Website: The Inquiry
• Feed URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029399x/episodes/downloads.rss
• Duration: 00:23:50
• Published: 2021-06-03 09:30

In November 2021, Britain will host the next UN Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as COP 26. Some 200 countries will come together to try to speed up attempts to make the world carbon neutral by the middle of the century.

But many countries are already struggling to ramp up renewable energy sufficiently to meet their greenhouse emission reduction targets. So is there another answer out there?

Around a tenth of the world's electricity is generated by nuclear reactors. Global generation has slowed in recent years after the nuclear accident in Fukushima a decade ago prompted governments to take a more cautious stance.

But with the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, many prominent environmentalists are now taking another look at nuclear energy.

Tanya Beckett asks if nuclear energy can helps us transition away from fossil fuel power.

Produced by Soila Apparicio.

(Exhaust plumes from cooling towers at the coal-fired power station at Jaenschwalde Germany. Credit: Sean Gallup /Getty Images)