Key Issues

Nuclear energy plays an integral role in providing clean energy for global sustainable development. The world has seen the successful international development and expansion of nuclear technology for energy, agriculture, medicine, food preservation, hydrology, industry and ecology in support of sustainable development.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development recognized nuclear energy’s contribution to clean air and sustainable development in its March 2007 report “Policy Directions to 2050”: “Three key technologies will be required to deliver sufficient scale of electricity generation and greenhouse gas reduction: renewables, nuclear power and clean-coal technology,” the group said.

The U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development created the classic definition of sustainable development in its report, “Our Common Future”: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

• U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division's materials on sustainable development
• World Business Council report (PDF)

In 1992, the United Nations adopted the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development to guide the world’s sustainable development efforts. The document contains 27 principles that, if observed, would ensure that economic growth would not jeopardize environmental integrity. The successful operation of nuclear power plants—along with the myriad health, industrial, agricultural, and environmental benefits of other nuclear technologies—fulfill these principles.

Sustainable development encompasses improving a country’s standard of living while preserving the environment of that particular country and the world. As Principle 3 of the Rio Declaration states, “The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations.” Emission-free technologies, such as nuclear energy, are essential to global sustainable development.

The Rio Declaration identifies, in Principle 5, “eradicating poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.” We will need massive quantities of electricity to free the world of poverty and disease. Among the countries of the world, on average, a three-year increase in life expectancy correlates with a 100 percent increase in electricity consumption per person.

Nuclear energy can supply electricity while satisfying the economic and environmental protection goals specified in the Rio Principles. Sustainable living conditions in the densely populated urban areas of the future will require abundant, reliable, affordable electricity generation that does not compromise the environment, such as nuclear energy.

• Rio Declaration on Environment and Development