NEEP graduates attend climate change conference

NEEP graduates Sama Bilbao y León and Paul Wilson represented the American Nuclear Society at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP5), in Bonn, Germany, in October and November 1999.

ANS booth at the UNFCCC conference. (24K JPG)

Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, international governmental and nongovernmental groups have considered the role of human activities--in particular, anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions--on global climate change. They drafted the UNFCCC at this meeting, and followed it in 1997 with the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement by the world's developed countries to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by six percent of the 1990 levels. Key issues COP5 attendees discussed include when they will ratify the Kyoto Protocol and how they will implement it.

International nuclear-industry representatives attend the UNFCCC conferences to educate attendees about the benefits of all forms of nuclear science and technology for sustainable development around the world. They encourage delegates to consider nuclear power as a solution for the global climate-change problem.

As founding members of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN), Bilbao y León and Wilson were active in the conference's "young generation" activities, and interacted with official delegates from a variety of countries and organizations. Bilbao y León now is leading the preparations for a larger NA-YGN delegation for COP6, scheduled for November 2000 in The Hague, The Netherlands.