Japan nuclear crisis to impact UN climate talks: EU

Japan's nuclear crisis will affect UN-led talks to fight climate change because it is prompting nations to rethink energy policies and investment costs, the European Union said on Sunday. But top EU climate negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger doubted the increased worries over nuclear will lead to a drop in nations' will to fight climate change or a lowering of existing pledges to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
"Whether it's going to reduce the level of ambition, I don't think so," he told reporters in the Thai capital Bangkok on the sidelines of a UN climate meeting. "Because you look ahead in tterms of two kinds of evils." "On one hand you might say I can't use nuclear because we might have nuclear disasters but I think everybody around the table is also saying we can't have climate change because it is also going to lead to disasters," he said.
But he said the radiation crisis at the quake and tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in northeast Japan would have repercussions on international climate negotiations.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries began a six-day UN meeting in the Thai capital Bangkok on Sunday on crafting a tougher climate pact that boosts global efforts to curb emissions from industry, farms and deforestation.
The meeting is the first major UN climate gathering since talks in Mexico last December agreed on a climate fund and other steps to put the fraught negotiations back on track.
The UN says rich nations' commitments to cut emissions fall far short of what is needed to keep global average temperatures below a rise of 2 deg C, a level scientists say is needed to stand a good chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
"I think there will be a lot of political considerations and they have repercussions in Bangkok and during the year because we haven't seen the end of what is going to happen in Fukushima," Runge-Metzger said.
"So certainly it is something that has an impact on climate negotiations." After the Japanese nuclear crisis began, Germany and Switzerland said they would either shut older reactors or suspend approvals.