Developing nations might get help to build nuclear power plants under proposals at 170-nation climate talks in Bonn for expanding a fast-growing U.N. scheme for curbing greenhouse gases.
Nuclear power is the most contentious option for widening a U.N. mechanism under which rich nations can invest abroad, for instance in an Indian wind farm or a hydropower dam in Peru, and get credit at home for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's one of the issues that needs to be considered," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said on Thursday of suggestions by countries including India and Canada at the June 2-13 talks of aid for atomic energy.
Other proposals at the talks include giving credits for capturing and burying carbon dioxide, for instance from coal-fired power plants, or to do far more to encourage planting of forests that soak up carbon as they grow.
Many nations and environmentalists oppose expanding the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to include nuclear power. The CDM is part of the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases running until 2012.
Nuclear power is the most contentious option for widening a U.N. mechanism under which rich nations can invest abroad, for instance in an Indian wind farm or a hydropower dam in Peru, and get credit at home for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's one of the issues that needs to be considered," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said on Thursday of suggestions by countries including India and Canada at the June 2-13 talks of aid for atomic energy.
Other proposals at the talks include giving credits for capturing and burying carbon dioxide, for instance from coal-fired power plants, or to do far more to encourage planting of forests that soak up carbon as they grow.
Many nations and environmentalists oppose expanding the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to include nuclear power. The CDM is part of the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases running until 2012.
