German Greens accused of spending £200,000 on ‘biased’ nuclear study

Swiss newspaper says conclusion of study aimed also at influencing other countries predetermined

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Germany’s Green party has been accused of spending £200,000 of taxpayers’ money on a biased study against nuclear energy, with the conclusion determined before the research began.
The Green-led environment ministry paid the anti-nuclear Institute for Applied Ecology a €250,000 for the study, which was explicitly aimed at “influencing international discourse”, according to an investigation by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Swiss broadsheet.
Despite claims from senior Greens that the study was commissioned in good faith, internal documents published in a public enquiry show that the expected “message” was explicitly that “nuclear energy is not sustainable and is not a climate saver”, according to a brief to department heads.
The institute which conducted the study came out of the 1970s German anti-nuclear movement, as did the Green Party itself, and the tender referred to nuclear energy making a “supposed renaissance” as a “supposedly safe, sustainable and low emissions” technology.
The environment ministry denied claims that the decision was made in advance, claiming that the internal briefing was referring to “general knowledge” within the ministry.
As well as justifying Germany’s nuclear phase-out, the then-unfinished study was supposed to be shared “specifically with countries with strong expansion plans for nuclear power” including the UK, France and the US ahead of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conference in Dubai in 2023, with a leaked email between Green-run ministries referring to “a window of opportunity that should be used”.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, Germany was in the grips of a serious energy crisis, with rising energy prices and fears of blackouts.
Scientists, industry and the opposition called for an extension of the country’s remaining three nuclear power plants.
But the Greens, who make up part of Olaf Scholz’s ‘traffic-light’ coalition, proceeded with taking the plants off the grid after a temporary extension.
The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), which is leading in the polls ahead of February’s election, have pledged to reverse the decision.
The opposition called for a public inquiry into the closing of Germany’s nuclear plants amid reports earlier this year that high ranking Green staff had suppressed internal voices calling for a delay on the nuclear phase out.
At the time, economy minister and vice chancellor Robert Habeck said that his staff had worked “without any restrictions on thinking”.
The motion for the inquiry stated that “it cannot be ruled out that, contrary to their public claim, professional expertise had to give way to political and party-political guidelines,” with an MP asking “whether the public was deceived in the decision to shut down the last three nuclear power plants.”
Mr Scholz’s now-defunct coalition also argued internationally against nuclear energy, opposing EU climate plans that categorised nuclear energy as clean.
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