As the G8 summit comes to an end we got an insight this week into what life might be like with an EU president. Our test run comes in the form of current EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barosso.

Climate change was the issue for Barosso this week speaking after a meeting with leaders of the world’s 16 biggest economies. There had he said been “a useful and wholly constructive exchange of views”. But “We have to get real.”
There was the expected talk from Barosso about ‘taking responsibility’ and the need for a ‘global response’ on climate change, but he didn’t discuss how this matches up with the refusal of the G8 summit to set an actual target for CO2 reduction. Though the G8 and larger emerging economies such as China and India said they supported a “shared vision” for on climate change and “deep cuts” in greenhouse gas emissions, there was no firm or strategy  on how they would do this.

Also unsaid by Barosso was the EU Commission’s support for new nuclear power stations as their solution to cutting Greenhouse gas emissions, swapping one form of pollution for another.

So no chance of Barosso getting real on nuclear power. Maybe someone should send him the recent Friends of the Earth Report on Sellafield, which has the world’s largest uranium and plutonium stockpile and which was deemed to be more dangerous than Chernobyl.

Titled Voodoo Economics and the Doomed Nuclear Renaissance it can be downloaded at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/voodoo_economics.pdf