YOKOHAMA--Sending a pointed and powerful message, the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World on Jan. 15 adopted a declaration calling for a world free of nuclear plants, signed by 311 dignitaries, to mark the March 11 date of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
YOKOHAMA--Sending a pointed and powerful message, the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World on Jan. 15 adopted a declaration calling for a world free of nuclear plants, signed by 311 dignitaries, to mark the March 11 date of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
The Yokohama Declaration for a Nuclear Power Free World calls for the protection of Fukushima people’s rights, full accountability from Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and the decommissioning of all nuclear power plants, among other demands.
The document echoed many of the arguments presented over the weekend, which were summed up by Kenji Eda, secretary-general of the Your Party political party.
“The Fukushima incident shattered three myths of nuclear power: One, that it’s safe; two, that it contributes toward our electricity supply; and three, that it’s cheap,” he said.
The two-day event, organized by groups Peace Boat, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth, among others, drew an audience of about 11,500 and participants from 30 countries at the Pacifico Yokohama convention center.
The declaration adopted at the conference also called for Japan’s reactors to not restart after the routine checks that will take all 54 offline by May. More than 100 international experts discussed with domestic scientists, economists and activists how Japan might achieve this by lobbying local governments and supporting a grass-roots shift to local microgrids run on renewable energy.
Other hot topics over the weekend included the problem of storing nuclear waste, Japan’s exporting of nuclear technology to countries such as Jordan and Vietnam, concrete plans for renewable energy systems, and how communities affected by the fallout from the Fukushima No. 1 plant can move forward.
Many attendees were activists or belonged to the nearly 100 citizens' groups who set up information booths promoting alternative energy or protesting radiation-related government decisions, such as a plan to ship canned seafood from the Tohoku region as official development assistance to African nations.
Several of the experts from Germany, which announced it would phase out nuclear power following the Fukushima accident last year, showed how renewable energy solutions such as wind or solar power could cover the electricity shortfall if Japan reduced or quit its reliance on nuclear power.
The conference also showed off the diversity of Japan's NGOs and NPOs, which are many in number but often small in scope.
"Japan has many programs, but they are in different cities and organizations," said Anton Vdovichenko, an organizer of children's summer camps and medical treatment centers in the contaminated area around Chernobyl. "We do (everything) in one organization.”
Japanese civil society is still relatively small compared with other countries, according to Masako Okawara, an Upper House member of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, who spoke at a parliamentarians’ session on Jan. 15.
“But it’s also growing; you are all here to call for a nuclear-free world and I am convinced that you will help to influence the central government,” she said.
The public frustration with the government witnessed at anti-nuclear demonstrations up and down the country over the past 10 months was tangible among the audience.
“I bet most people here are thinking, ‘What on earth is parliament doing?’ because no one is taking the time to properly discuss the issue of nuclear power in the Diet,” said Tomoko Tamura, an Upper House lawmaker of the Japanese Communist Party. “We need to ask politicians to speak out and argue their case.”
Citizens can also play a part, according to Shigeki Nishihara, the mayor of Makinohara in Shizuoka Prefecture, where residents were able to effect the shutdown of a nuclear plant through a local ordinance. All five mayors at the session, including Katsunobu Sakurai, the Minami-Soma mayor who shot to fame last year with YouTube videos pleading to the world for help, urged people to lobby their local governments to not allow the reactors to go back online.
If Japan was to end its reliance on nuclear power and shift investment and industry to renewable energy sources, it would be joining an international shift that is already under way, according to Mycle Schneider, a German consultant on nuclear issues.
“It’s nothing short of a revolution,” he said. “It’s just Japan’s choice whether it joins it or not.”
The conference drew to a close on Jan. 15 with its most resonant words coming from one of its youngest participants.
"I'd like to ask the people who run this country: Is money more important than the lives of us children?" said Yuri Tomizuka, a 10-year-old schoolboy from Fukushima Prefecture, who was forced to evacuate to Yokohama, along with his mother, after the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. "In the future I want to become a scientist, but I have to be healthy to achieve my dream."
(This article was written by Sophie Knight and Louis Templado.)