Expert discussion of the Environment Committee on the Fukushima reactor disaster

Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, chairwoman of the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Source: Deutscher Bundestag / Florian Gaertner, photothek.net

On the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the Fukushima reactor disaster in March 2011, the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of the German Bundes-tag discussed the topic on 14 March 2018. In a public expert discussion, Dr. Stefan Thomas, member of the German-Japanese Transition Council (GJETC) and Head of Department for Energy, Transport and Climate Policy at the Wuppertal Institute, reported on the consequences of the reactor disaster and answered questions from the members of parliament.

The discussion focused on strategies for the expansion and promotion of renewable energies in a German-Japanese comparison. The committee members exchanged views with their guest, for example, on the varying degrees of progress made in the fields of energy transformation (for example in the expansion of the electricity networks) and digitisation (on topics such as e-mobility and smart homes).

The chairwoman of the Environment Committee, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, emphasized the bilateral exchange at eye level. The reactor catastrophe in Fukushima represented a serious social disruption, especially for the local population affected, she said, but the work of the German-Japanese Cooperation Council showed that the energy transition to renewable energies was economically and socially reasonable.