• Michael Jacobs

02 August 2011The world’s energy policy-makers are watching as the Merkel government takes the lead, writes Michael Jacobs in Inside Story

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IN THE days following the earthquake that crippled Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in March, it was clear that the political aftershocks would spread well beyond that country. It is hardly a surprise that the Japanese government’s plans to increase the proportion of electricity coming from nuclear power (from 30 to 50 per cent) now lie in chaos. Many countries have put new nuclear building programs on hold while governments assess the implications of the disaster not just for the safety of nuclear plants but for their public acceptability.

What few people foresaw, though, was that Fukushima’s biggest impact of all would be felt halfway around the world, in Germany. But that is the inescapable conclusion from events over the past few months in the world’s fourth-largest economy. And in terms of energy and climate change policy, the results are likely to reverberate back around the globe…

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Above: Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. Photo: World Economic Forum