This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center
Fourteen years after the Fukushima disaster, Japan is restarting its nuclear reactors – and two wind-blown near-deserted fishing villages on the northern island of Hokkaido could be the destination for all their radioactive waste.
But, while some residents of Suttsu and Kamoenai welcome the government money that volunteering to store the waste will bring, others are fiercely opposed due to fears that the nuclear waste will contaminate their land and water.
The controversy could delay Japan’s goals to use carbon-free nuclear energy to replace electricity generation from expensive imported fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions on the way to net zero by 2050.
Takeshi Kuramochi, a climate policy researcher at the NewClimate Institute, called the nuclear waste issue a “showstopper” for nuclear development. He added that, if Japan fails to meet its nuclear targets, it will likely resort to fossil fuels to fill the gap as the country has been “very slow on implementing renewable energy.”
Japan’s nuclear history
Japan first started using nuclear power to generate electricity in the 1960s and, by the twenty-first century, it was one of the nation’s main energy sources. As the island nation lacks fossil fuels and relies mostly on imports, nuclear power was seen as a path to energy independence as well as to reining in climate change.
But everything changed in 2011 when a powerful earthquake and tsunami disabled the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s cooling systems, causing nuclear fuel in three of its reactors to overheat and melt down, releasing radioactive materials into the air and ocean.
While no one was killed by the nuclear disaster directly, over 150,000 people were evacuated and some severely ill hospital patients did not survive their relocation. All of Japan’s nuclear power stations were shut down while new safety standards were drawn up. Well over a decade on, only 14 of its 54 reactors have been restarted.
Without electricity from these power stations, Japan resorted to increasing its use of gas and coal. While the EU, US and UK all more than halved their coal emissions between 2011 and 2023, Japan’s stayed the same.
But as memories of Fukushima fade for some, and global fossil fuel prices skyrocket, support for nuclear is again growing in Japan. In 2014, polls suggested 16% of Japanese people wanted an immediate phase-out of nuclear power but in 2024 that figure was just 5%.
With this in mind, earlier this year Japan announced a contentious plan to boost nuclear energy in its mix from the current level of 8.5% to 20% by 2040 – back up to its pre-Fukushima levels – as the country strives to realise its net-zero goal by 2050.
Nuclear waste storage
Standing in the way of those ambitions is nuclear energy’s Achilles heel – radioactive waste storage. When used up, the uranium rods that produce nuclear energy need to be disposed of. The spent rods are highly radioactive and hot, so they are usually buried — permanently — deep underground.
Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that, although storing waste is “actually pretty straightforward”, it is also often highly controversial around the world. He emphasised that current technology can prevent leakages of high-level waste after they are put underground, as long as the assessment for a site is done right.
Japan’s waste is currently being stored at an interim facility on its main island in Aomori Prefecture — despite some local opposition. This facility can only house the waste for 50 years and, as of 2023, 80% of its storage space was filled up.
There was a government plan to reprocess the waste to recycle the energy. But a plant designed to do so has been delayed and research took a hit after Fukushima, casting doubt on the technique.
Japan, like other producers of nuclear energy, now has the urgent and challenging task of looking for a site to permanently store such waste.
To convince local governments to volunteer to store it under their land, the Japanese government offered two billion yen ($14 million) to any village that consented to literature surveys of key criteria, including past earthquake records.
If the survey found them suitable, a further seven billion yen ($49 million) would be the reward for entering the four-year second stage of the selection process involving a site study. The last stage, which lasts for 14 years, would see a more detailed assessment with test tunnels and mock facilities, but the amount of subsidy for that has yet to be determined.
The only municipalities through to the second stage so far are two tiny fishing villages in Hokkaido. Suttsu and Kamoenai are both within an hour’s drive of the Tomari nuclear power plant and have ageing populations, as in many of Japan’s rural areas.
Villages of Suttsu and Kamoenai
Climate Home visited both villages in spring and heard that the nuclear waste issue was at the top of people’s minds, although opinions on it differed sharply. Dotted with worn houses along a wavy coastline, the streets of Kamoenai looked grey and were near-deserted. Most residents were tight-lipped about the issue.
At the tourist information centre where she works, Toritani Taeko told Climate Home that “nuclear waste isn’t a big deal, but it has to be safe”. Besides, she said, “it’s set in stone already so no point in opposing”.
Sato Tazunori, a silver-haired sushi chef, said that the two billion yen ($14m) for the first stage helped with the repair of the fishing pier. Living near the Tomari nuclear plant for years has made locals accustomed to staying near nuclear facilities, he added.
But an hour’s drive away in Suttsu, where one of Japan’s first wind farms was built, opinions were more polarised. Electrical store owner Tana Noriyuki said the money helps the village pay for resources like a dormitory for nursing workers and a school.
However, Nobuka Miki, co-chair of a group fighting against nuclear waste and mother to a teenage daughter, said a potential underground disposal site there could harm future generations, while the seafood produced in the village could suffer.
Suttsu’s nuclear fate will effectively be decided in November’s Mayoral elections. The current pro-waste mayor, who declined to speak to Climate Home, is likely to be challenged by anti-waste 41-year-old Shingo Ogushi.
Ogushi came to Suttsu in his early 30s to study the local cherry trout, but in 2020, in order to challenge the mayor’s decision to volunteer for the site study, he quit and intends to run against him in this year’s mayoral election. He told Climate Home that a pier might have to be built to transport nuclear waste to the village. If so, he said this could disturb the marine ecosystem and the fishing industry.
Pro-nuclear voices argue that more needs to be done to win public support for nuclear energy and nuclear waste, while critics argue the technology should be dropped – at least in earthquake-prone Japan.
Indigenous rights: Ainu people
Nuclear waste storage is also controversial among the Indigenous people of Hokkaido – the Ainu. Although there are no current Ainu communities in either of the two villages and less than 20,000 Ainu on the whole of Hokkaido, they were the almost sole inhabitants of the island until the Japanese took over in the 19th century.
ann-elise iewallen, a professor at the University of California specialising in indigenous and environmental rights said that, because of the lack of Ainu consent for nuclear waste storage on Hokkaido, Japan is engaging ini “energy colonialism”.
iewallen – who decapitalises her name as a gesture towards resisting hierarchy – warned of the risk that “part of Hokkaido can be carved out as a kind of nuclear extractive zone”.
The names Suttsu and Kamoenai come from the Ainu language, according to Hiroshi Maruyama, director of Japan’s Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies. Ainu people “feel closer to the land than Japanese settlers”, he added.
Fumio Kimura, an Ainu activist in Hokkaido, said that “any nuclear waste on our land is horrible and our right to the land shouldn’t be neglected”. “Japanese people robbed our land, so why can’t we voice it out?” she asked.
Ainu musician Oki Kano told Climate Home that nuclear waste is regarded as “poison” in Ainu’s philosophy, which seeks a balance between human and nature.
But Kazuaki Kaizawa, secretary general of the government-funded Ainu Association of Hokkaido, said that while nuclear energy and other modern technologies are traditionally regarded as unnatural in Ainu philosophy, those principles can not be fully applied in the modern world. He added that, as Hokkaido has been part of Japan for over a hundred years, Indigenous land rights are no longer practical.
In 2007, Japan was among the 143 countries that voted in favour of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The declaration states that governments shall “take effective measures” to “ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous people without their free, prior and informed consent.”
But the declaration is non-binding and Japanese law does not currently recognise the Ainu peoples’ rights to Hokkaido’s land, although a court case over salmon fishing rights may change this.
A way forward
Takatoshi Imada, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who has published research on public opinion of the nuclear waste system, said that, to avoid the division seen in Suttsu, an organisation outside of government should select 20 or so sites and engage their communities in “deliberative dialogue” to win their support for waste storage.
But New Climate Institute’s Kuramochi said that finding a storage site far away from people will be next to impossible in Japan – and that nuclear energy should not be relied on as legal battles, local opposition and safety inspections will slow down its deployment.
“There’s a huge risk of spending so much money on nuclear and nothing coming out of it at the end,” he said. “If you are betting on nuclear, then that means they are not committing fully to this more fully modernised grid network that can accommodate a large amount of renewables”. That, he added, “delays the whole transition of the entire electricity system.”
Buongiorno argues the opposite, saying that nuclear can provide the around-the-clock clean power that solar and wind – when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow – cannot. Therefore, he said nuclear power enables a clean renewables-based electric grid.
Nobuyuki Kawashima, spokesperson for Japan’s nuclear waste authority NUMO, agreed, telling Climate Home that nuclear power “will lead to both ensuring a stable supply and decarbonisation”. “Final disposal needs to be carried out step by step, with the understanding of the public,” Kawashima added.
Translator Zhao Yang contributed to this report. A version of this story was co-published with Japan Times
The post Nuclear comeback? Japan’s plans to restart reactors hit resistance over radioactive waste appeared first on Climate Home News.
Nuclear comeback? Japan’s plans to restart reactors hit resistance over radioactive waste
Britain’s new prime minister announced in his first week that he will cut the cost of public transport and electricity, making lower-emission technologies like bus travel, electric vehicles and heat pumps more affordable for voters. But some of the funding for those policies will come from the budget for international climate finance, the government has said, raising concerns about fairness.
Former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham took over from Keir Starmer as Labour Party leader and prime minister on Monday, appointing climate advocates Ed Miliband as foreign and development minister and Miatta Fahnbulleh as climate and energy minister.
On Tuesday, Burnham said his government would cut the value added tax (VAT) households and some small businesses pay on their electricity bills from 5% to zero from October 1, saving households £45 ($60) a year.
On Wednesday, he said the maximum fare bus companies in England can charge for a single journey will be reduced from £3 ($4) to £2 ($2.67) from January 1, 2027. The government said the subsidies to achieve this would be mostly funded by switching money set aside for overseas climate finance projects from grants to loans. It did not give further information in its announcement, while the UK’s transport minister told Sky News the plan is still being worked out.
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The floated changes to the climate finance budget were immediately criticised by groups working on climate justice for developing countries, including Bond, the UK network for NGOs, which described the decision as “disappointing”.
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the answer and pitches marginalised communities in the UK against marginalised communities in lower-income and climate-vulnerable countries,” BOND CEO Romilly Greenhill said in a statement. “Climate finance must not worsen the debt burden of countries that are already suffering the worst – and most costly – impacts of a climate crisis they did not cause.”
Hunt for money
Burnham promoted both policies as measures to combat the rising cost of living and “give people breathing space”, with climate campaigners and industry groups noting they are also likely to reduce the UK’s climate-heating emissions by encouraging bus travel and the use of electric vehicles and heating.
But thorny questions remain over how the policies will be paid for. The government said Tuesday’s VAT cut for electricity would be funded by scrapping the previous government’s digital ID programme, but Darren Jones, a former minister involved with that policy, said it had been “unfunded” – a statement that dominated media coverage.
A day later, the government said the new bus fare cap would cost £454 million ($606m). Transport minister Heidi Alexander told Sky News that £54 million would be taken from an under-spend in the budget of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and £400 million would come from changing unspecified international climate finance from grants to loans. The details “still need to be worked through”, she said, adding that the government “had wanted to make an announcement today”.
Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based think-tank Power Shift Africa, said “climate finance was never meant to be a pot of money that governments raid when they need to pay for domestic spending”.
DESNZ had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication. “We’re not wanting to fleece anyone here, and we actually want to maximise the development potential of this money that is available,” minister Alexander said in her TV interview.
Aside from the controversy over their funding, the policies themselves were widely welcomed by climate campaigners. Jess Ralston, energy lead at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said the tax cut on electricity bills “could help households to switch to electric heat pumps, protecting UK homes from becoming ever more exposed to the whims of Putin and Trump when turning on their gas boiler”.
The last few months have seen global momentum build behind electrification, spurred by the US-Iran war disrupting oil and gas supplies and driving up prices. The Turkish and Australian COP31 presidencies have announced a global target to boost electrification, backed by the European Union, Canada, Philippines, UK and others.
Campaigners call for lower power prices
While reaction to the VAT cut was supportive, some questioned whether £45 a year of savings per household is enough and called for more measures to cut electricity bills.
Friends of the Earth’s energy lead Imogen Dow said those on the lowest incomes should be given cheaper electricity through a “social tariff” and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think-tank – which is close to the Labour Party – said levies on energy bills should be shifted to general taxation.
Matthew Paterson, a politics professor at Manchester University, told Climate Home News that the most effective way to reduce electricity bills is to take on the UK’s private electricity companies, while consumer-oriented measures like the VAT cut are “tinkering around the edges”.
Jarrod Birch, head of policy and public affairs for the EV charging industry association Charge UK, said that while the policy would make home-charging cheaper, people who charge their vehicles at public points will still have to pay 20% VAT. The UK’s tax authority is fighting a court ruling that ordered it to reduce the tax motorists pay on public chargers to the current household rate of 5%.
Further measures will be the responsibility of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh, who is relatively new to politics after a career at left-wing, pro-climate think tanks the IPPR and the New Economics Foundation.
Michael Jacobs, political economy professor at Sheffield University and former adviser to UK Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, said Fahnbulleh would be a “climate advocate” who would continue the “progressive climate agenda” of her predecessor Ed Miliband.
“She’s a very creative policy wonk so I expect there to be lots of policy innovation under her,” he said, “I think she will be looking at new ways to encourage take-up of heat pumps and domestic batteries.”
Aid budget in Miliband’s hands
Despite reports he could be made finance minister, Miliband has been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Miliband has attended many climate COP meetings over several decades, most recently representing the UK at COP29 and COP30, and has been targeted by the right-wing media for his support for climate action and opposition to new oil and gas drilling in the UK’s part of the North Sea.
In his new role, Miliband will be responsible for the UK’s overseas aid budget including its international climate finance, which the Starmer government had slashed to fund increases in defence spending.
UK cuts support for climate action abroad to fund military instead
Jacobs said he expected Miliband to prioritise climate and development in the UK’s foreign policy and to push Burnham and new finance minister John Healey to reverse Starmer’s aid cuts.
But there are fears Healey could try to cut the aid budget further to fund the military. Healey was a surprise pick for Chancellor of the Exchequer and grabbed headlines when he resigned as Starmer’s defence minister in June over what he saw as insufficient defence spending.
The post Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Will new UK PM’s green measures at home cause climate finance pain overseas?
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 22 July 2026 – Greenpeace Netherlands has launched legal proceedings against a multi-billion-dollar global expansion plan by the biggest meat producer in Australia, JBS, in an escalation of climate litigation against the livestock industry.
Greenpeace petitioned a Dutch court to compel the meat giant to disclose information in order to challenge its business policies in court, including a US$6 billion global expansion, for which almost half is earmarked for Nigeria.
Elizabeth Atieno, Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said: “JBS’ meat empire expanded hand-in-glove with Amazon destruction, colossal emissions, human rights and corruption scandals, all with barely a semblance of transparency. This is the business model it wants to export to sub-Saharan Africa. JBS promises food security, but its expansion in Nigeria risks causing irreversible environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers to line the pockets of wealthy global elites.
“Nigerians know well from the legacy of companies like Shell the destructive impact wrought by unchecked corporate power. As Greenpeace Africa has argued before the African Court of Human Rights, states with jurisdiction over multinationals must hold those corporate actors accountable – wherever they operate in the world. We welcome this bold legal action: the Netherlands and other European states must not be safe havens for corporations like JBS seeking to evade their responsibilities.”
In light of JBS’ longstanding failure to publish accurate and reliable information on its climate, nature and human rights impacts or its expansion plans, Greenpeace Netherlands views accessing this data as a necessary precursor to formal litigation in order to support its case. The case has the potential to be the first climate litigation of this scale against the livestock industry. This could set a major precedent for future legal challenges against the industrial agriculture sector, a major source of global emissions, particularly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for 0.5°C of warming since the Industrial Revolution.[1]
JBS, via its subsidiary JBS Foods Australia, is the largest meat and food processing company in Australia. With a weekly processing capacity of over 50,000 cattle, it accounts for almost a quarter of all beef processing in the country, as well as a significant presence in the lamb, pork and farmed fish markets. [2] In 2022, ABC’s Four Corners accused the company of ‘repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries.’ [3]
Marieke Vellekoop, Executive Director at Greenpeace Netherlands, said “In a month where JBS has thrown its flagship environmental commitments onto the scrap heap, JBS’ disdain for basic transparency only adds to the impression that this meat giant has something to hide and is desperate to prevent its expansion plans from going public. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to trouble a judge with this matter, but JBS has left us no choice but to seek our right to information through the Dutch courts.
“JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, our rules do not apply to it. This legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.“
At the centre of the dispute is JBS’ planned US$ 2.5 billion investment in industrial livestock production in Nigeria.[2] Civil society groups in Nigeria have raised urgent warnings that the aggressive expansion will threaten local food security, drive regional instability, and accelerate ecological degradation. There is no available evidence that JBS has conducted any impact assessments or community consultations in Nigeria, and local efforts to gather more information via Freedom of Information requests have reportedly been ignored.[3]
The escalation to the courts follows the refusal of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to comply with a formal disclosure demand delivered by Greenpeace Netherlands in April. The environmental group is utilising new Dutch legislation, which grants parties with a legitimate interest the right to demand access to specific corporate data necessary to build litigation against Dutch companies.[4]
Greenpeace Netherlands’ lawyers allege that JBS’ historic business practices and future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and represent a breach of its Dutch duty of care, which requires companies to act in line with international human rights law.[5]
If the court rules in favor of Greenpeace Netherlands, it is entitled to seek the required information in the form of documents and from senior JBS figures under oath, raising the prospect of the Batista brothers being forced to testify in Dutch court. JBS reincorporated as a Dutch entity (JBS N.V.) last year to facilitate a dual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
In April, JBS was forced to temporarily suspend its first annual general meeting since moving its headquarters to Amsterdam after it was disrupted by dozens of Greenpeace Netherlands activists.
Last week, JBS scrapped two flagship commitments to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and eradicate deforestation from its supply chain. It also removed any explicit reference to Indigenous lands from all of its current policies. Greenpeace Netherlands is concerned this indicates JBS is seeking to expand unconstrained by the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its business.
–ENDS–
Notes:
[1] The livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for 31% of global methane emissions (more than oil and gas operations). In comparison to CO2, methane is shorter lived (around 12 years) but has a much stronger ability to trap heat in the atmosphere over its lifetime: it has approximately 80 times more climate impact than CO2 when measured over 20 years. This means that changes in methane emissions have a more rapid effect on the climate than changes in CO2. See Greenpeace Netherlands letter to JBS dated 30 April 2026.
[2] JBS Foods Australia, Our Business
[3] ABC, Australia’s biggest meat company JBS is repeatedly failing to protect its workers from horrific injuries, 25 April 2022
[4] JBS announcement
[5] Experts raise concerns over the risks of industrial animal farming (The Sun Nigeria)
[6] Simplification and modernisation of Dutch evidence law (Fieldfisher)
[7] Greenpeace Netherlands petition to Dutch court available here. Media briefing with further details on JBS expansion plans, including in Nigeria, available here.
Greenpeace launches legal challenge against Australia’s biggest meat company
Climate Change
“Next year is too late for regulations”: Beetaloo Energy’s 2GW gas-powered AI data centre a “disaster proposal” destined to cause climate chaos
SYDNEY, Wednesday 22 July 2026 — Beetaloo Energy has secured land from the NT Government for a massive $40 billion “hyperscale” AI data centre near Darwin, which would be powered by 2 gigawatts (GW) of gas power fracked directly from the Beetaloo basin, prompting calls from Greenpeace for urgent federal legislation.
The proposal marks a dangerous escalation in the AI data centre industry’s expansion, which threatens to entrench fossil fuel infrastructure for decades and put immense pressure on the region’s fragile water resources — while continuing to be unregulated.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This disaster proposal for a 2GW gas-powered AI data centre in the NT is a shocking example of the unchecked expansion of hyperscale data centres in Australia. It is also, critically, more evidence for the urgent need for a moratorium on all new data centres until strong, binding regulations are put in place to protect our communities and climate.
“This proposal mirrors the frenzied, unchecked expansion currently wreaking havoc on communities in the US. We are seeing cowboy data centre operators treat Australia like a playground, steam-rolling ahead with projects that would lock down precious water resources and spike emissions, despite the overwhelming community opposition.
“Every day, more councils, communities and environmental groups are joining Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on data centres, yet as of today there is still no system of safeguards or rules in place to regulate these companies.
“While Beetaloo Energy and the NT Government prepare to bulldoze ahead with this climate and water disaster, the Prime Minister is asleep at the wheel, promising to legislate a vague set of standards next year.
“Next year is too late, and anything less than mandating data centres cover their own energy demand, and then some, with new renewable energy is not enough.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
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