Abstract
When on 11 March 2011 the 9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and resultant tsunami crippled the cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, thus sending several reactors into core meltdown, the German outcry against nuclear energy was almost unanimous. On Saturday, March 12, some 60,000 people demonstrated against the continued operation of one of the country’s oldest nuclear power stations by forming a 45-kilometer human chain from the power plant to the regional capital. Two days later, more than 100,000 demonstrators took to the streets in 400 towns and cities across the nation. Faced with the rising public pressure, the federal government shut down the country’s seven oldest reactors and imposed a technical audit on all nuclear power plants. In addition, the cabinet appointed an independent ethics committee on the safety of the nation’s energy future.1 Upon completion of the review process, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on May 30 that Germany would phase-out nuclear power by 2022. Parliament passed the respective bill with an overwhelming majority on 8 July 2011. A heated public debate had come to an end: nuclear power was done for and over with.
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Notes
Cf. Felix Kolb (2007) Protests and Opportunities: The Political Outcomes of Social Movements (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag), p. 211
Cf. Helmut Weidner and Lutz Mez (2008) ‘German climate change policy: A success story with some flaws’, The Journal of Environment Development 2008, 17(4), 356–378
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Cf. Alice Holmes Cooper (1996) Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements since 1945 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
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Cf. Christian Joppke (1995) Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley: The University of California Press), p. 109
Cf. Gerard Braunthal (1998) ‘Opposition in the Kohl era: The SPD and the Left’, in Clay Clemens and William E. Paterson (eds) The Kohl Chancellorship (Portland: Frank Cass), pp. 143–162
Loren R. Cass (2007) ‘Measuring the domestic salience of international environmental norms: climate change norms in American, German, and British climate change debates’, in Mary E. Pettenger (ed.) The Social Construction of Climate Change: Power, Knowledge, Norms, Discourse, (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. 36–40.
Cf. Paul Hockenos (2008), Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic: An Alternative History of Postwar Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
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© 2013 Manuela Achilles
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Achilles, M. (2013). ‘Nuclear Power? No, Thank You!’: Germany’s Energy Revolution Post-Fukushima. In: Achilles, M., Elzey, D. (eds) Environmental Sustainability in Transatlantic Perspective. Energy, Climate and the Environment Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334480_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334480_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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