International reactions to the Fukushima nuclear accident
[4] Following the Fukushima I accidents, The Economist reported that the International Energy Agency halved its estimate of additional nuclear generating capacity to be built by 2035.
Der Spiegel reported that German Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel admitted that "exiting nuclear and coal-fired power generation at the same time would not be possible".
[citation needed] Elsewhere in the world, nuclear power continues to be discussed in Malaysia,[8] and plans are well-advanced in the United Arab Emirates,[9][10] Jordan,[11] and Bangladesh.
But nuclear experts say that the agency's complicated mandate and the constraints imposed by its member states mean that reforms will not happen quickly or easily, although its INES "emergency scale is very likely to be revisited" given the confusing way in which it was used in Japan.
He has accused the IAEA and corporations of "wilfully ignoring lessons from the world's worst nuclear accident 25 years ago to protect the industry's expansion".
But its initial reports provided scant and at times contradictory information from Japanese sources and it took a week for the IAEA to dispatch a team to Japan to gather more facts on the ground.
Olli Heinonen has said that "Fukushima should be a wake-up call to re-evaluate and strengthen the role of the IAEA in boosting nuclear safety, including its response mechanism".
[22] According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Japan "underestimated the danger of tsunamis and failed to prepare adequate backup systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant".
This repeated a widely held criticism in Japan that "collusive ties between regulators and industry led to weak oversight and a failure to ensure adequate safety levels at the plant".
Three of the reactors "quickly overheated, causing meltdowns that eventually led to explosions, which hurled large amounts of radioactive material into the air".
On 31 March, In response to the IAEA, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Thursday the government may implement measures, if necessary, such as urging people living in the area to evacuate, if it is found that the contaminated soil will have a long-term effect on human health.
In April 2011, representatives from dozens of countries met in Austria to scrutinize safety at each other's power plants with the aim of avoiding accidents such as the Japanese nuclear crisis.
The meeting was hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency and focused on the Convention on Nuclear Safety that came into being in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident and Chernobyl disaster.
An official of the NSA said that high radioactivity levels detected by the NGO could not be considered reliable, although some members of Greenpeace stressed that their numbers corresponded in other areas.
[32] The New York Times called the reporting by Greenpeace (with a well-known anti-nuclear position) a "guarded endorsement to the radiation data published by the Japanese government", due to the general correspondence between the numbers.
[34][35] Funds that invested in companies tied to renewable energy, clean technology, the oil industry and other natural resources rose 13.7% in the first three months of 2011, "benefiting from turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East and the anti-nuclear sentiment after the accident in Japan".
[36] On 14 March, France became the first country to advise its nationals to leave Tokyo, citing a probable large aftershock in the Kanto area and the risk associated with the nuclear plants' ongoing accidents.
[37] Embassies of other countries, including UK,[38][39] Germany,[40][41][42] Switzerland,[43] Austria,[44] Italy,[39] Australia,[39] New Zealand,[45][46] Finland,[47] Kenya,[48] Israel[49] repeated similar advice in the following days.
[56] US officials have concluded that the Japanese warnings have been insufficient, and that, deliberately or not, they have understated the potential threat of what is taking place inside the nuclear facility, according to The New York Times[citation needed].
[68][69] On 17 March, the United States newsmagazine Time reported on the Southern Californian residents reaction to the risk from the fallout, and the run on iodine tablets.
[70] On 18 March, France was reported to be shipping iodide tablets to French Polynesia as a preventative measure, in light of the fallout cloud drifting across the Pacific.
[71] The Japanese government and Tokyo Electric asked France's Areva to provide technical assistance in the process of removing radioactive water from the nuclear power facility.
[83] George Hsu, a professor of applied economics at National Chung Hsing University in central Taiwan, said nuclear power plants in quake-prone areas need to be redesigned to make them more resistant, an investment that would reduce their original cost advantage.
This was part of a nationwide "No Nuke Action" protest, urging the government to stop construction of a Fourth Nuclear Plant and pursue a more sustainable energy policy.
[97] The New York Times reported that "most Germans have a deep-seated aversion to nuclear power, and the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan has galvanized opposition".
[101] In India, there has been rapid growth in energy use and there are plans to build the world's largest nuclear plant in Jaitapur, but anti-nuclear protests have intensified following the Fukushima crisis.
But in the wake of the Fukushima crisis, antinuclear rallies drawing thousands have erupted in Italy, and the Italian government has "decided on a one-year moratorium on its plans to revive nuclear power".
Demonstrators, many with signs that read "No nuclear power, neither here nor in Japan", gathered in small groups in more than 30 cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.
[178] In 2011, London-based bank HSBC said: "With Three Mile Island and Fukushima as a backdrop, the US public may find it difficult to support major nuclear new build and we expect that no new plant extensions will be granted either.
[179] In 2011, Deutsche Bank analysts concluded that "the global impact of the Fukushima accident is a fundamental shift in public perception with regard to how a nation prioritizes and values its populations health, safety, security, and natural environment when determining its current and future energy pathways".
