Campaigners from Suffolk are in Glasgow to highlight how Sizewell C is not the solution to our climate emergency. Stop Sizewell C, two Suffolk Coastal 2019 General Election candidates – Green East Suffolk Councillor Rachel Smith-Lyte and Liberal Democrat Julia Ewart – whose parties oppose Sizewell C, and local supporters unfurled a “Nuclear is Not Green” banner in the centre of Glasgow.
Alison Downes said “With the attention of the world on Glasgow, we’re here to highlight how Sizewell C is the wrong solution for our climate emergency, and the need – in the words of the Prince of Wales for a radical transformation to an economy that is ‘genuinely renewable and sustainable’. With competition for finance it’s unacceptable that £1.7bn of taxpayers’ money is being earmarked for a large scale nuclear project, let alone the tax proposed on all our energy bills.”
Rachel Smith-Lyte said: “It’s great to be in a nation that understands that if you want green policies you can’t keep voting for the business-as-usual parties and expect a different result. We seem to be in an era of greenwash.* We need to be alert to that and to be clear about what is genuinely green and genuinely renewable energy, and nuclear isn’t it.”
Julia Ewart said: “Given that COP26 is about progressive innovation, how can a project so costly and slow as Sizewell C be he answer? EDF may think they are on the brink of a favourable outcome based on the current hysterical wish by this government to be seen to be taking action, but the UK should not lock itself into a project that’s so outdated.”
Note
* Nuclear is excluded from the Chancellor’s Green Financing Framework, but a paper released by the Treasury on 18 October revealed that the government has asked the UK Energy Working Group to look as a matter of priority at the “taxonomy” of nuclear energy, to see if it could be “reclassified”