Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Lawyers in Japan opposed to nuclear power said on Monday that it is not a viable option in the fight against global warming and poses a major threat to humanity.

Hiroyuki Kawai, Co-chair of the National Association of Lawyers for a Nuclear Power Free Japan, told a press conference in Tokyo: “I think the belief that nuclear power plants are something that could be utilized to tackle global warming is the wrong way of looking at the situation. In Japan, nuclear power is very dangerous and has the threat of causing a huge number of deaths. It could even lead to the collapse of the country itself should another major accident occur.”

Kawai suggested that Germany’s decision to move away from nuclear power came too late and if it had made an earlier decision, Germany would have been in a stronger position. He also scoffed at the idea that it was the lesser of two evils when asked about nuclear power and global warming.

“A nuclear disaster has the potential to kill many people so it’s a major risk, and that’s the first thing we have to think about,” he stated.

“Anyone who thinks nuclear energy is the lesser of two evils doesn’t understand the situation in Japan and it makes me angry that I have to answer such questions. Global warming is something that all of humanity must fix by working together.

“After the (2011) disaster, Japan for several years lived without nuclear power. In order to have a country without nuclear power plants it’s necessary to reduce the huge amounts of money that are spent on nuclear power plants and shift towards renewable energy. Japan can survive without nuclear power.”

Yuichi Kaido, also Co-chair of the National Association of Lawyers for a Nuclear Power Free Japan, blasted the Japanese government for its lack of action regarding safety measures for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that blew up after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

“The government was aware that safety measures should be put into place and that (plant operator) TEPCO did not take such measures,” he told the media. “You could say that the government, which had the authority to order TEPCO to take the necessary measures, saw that TEPCO was failing to fulfil its obligations and was not serious about taking measures to protect the plant.”

The Tokyo District Court has ordered four former executives of TEPCO to pay 13.32 trillion yen ($97 billion) to the company for damage caused by the disaster at the Fukushima plant. The judge ruled that the four failed in their duty as TEPCO directors regarding tsunami countermeasures.

One of the defendants, Sakae Muto rejected a proposal by TEPCO’s civil engineering group, which had recommended the implementation of tsunami countermeasures in July 2008. The judge said that the other three defendants were complicit in failing to take action and “fundamentally lacked safety awareness and a sense of responsibility.”

Two former nuclear power plant engineers testified that waterproofing and sea walls to prevent tsunami inundation were technically easy to implement and could have been completed by the time of the accident.

As this wasn’t carried out, the emergency power generators, installed to keep the electricity power on to cool the reactors in case the main source of power shut down for any reason, were submerged by water from the tsunami and stopped working.

This led to the temperature of the nuclear fuel rising out of control and caused one of the reactors to explode.