As the panic over a nuclear meltdown in Japan reaches new levels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly called off plans to extend the lifetime of Germany’s old nuclear reactors. Germany then proceeded to shut down seven of its oldest reactors at least until June while reassessing the situation.

Finland, which is set to become the world’s largest nuclear producer measured per capita after last year’s decision to build two new nuclear power stations, adopted a very different approach.

Finnish Finance Minister Jyrki Katainen commented immediately on Sunday that no conclusions should yet be drawn from the Japanese situation for Finnish energy policy. Much of the commentary has since surrounded the fact that seismic activity is rare in Finland.

However, the chief inspector for the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority argued that a nuclear accident can’t be ruled out in Finland despite the slight chance of earthquakes. He told a Finnish newspaper that it would require “an exceptionally strong storm”, which would wreak havoc on a nuclear plant and surrounding transport and energy infrastructure. The risk assessments done to ensure the “safety” of a planned nuclear reactor base on weather conditions in previous years, but it’s the unpredictable that you can’ plan for. 

Take a look at Sweden, which came close to a nuclear accident in 2006 when a short-circuit led to an electricity failure at Forsmark 1 nuclear reactor.  When two out of four back-up generators failed, it was described as poor luck that there was no meltdown. The incident should tell us something about the sheer unpredictability of nuclear energy. Who’s to say that something similar couldn’t happen at a nuclear plant in Finland, or anywhere else for that matter?

Terrorist attacks are another catastrophy waiting to happen that the Finnish authorities haven’t taken into account when handing out permits to new nuclear stations.

It’s clear that the Finnish government needs to start thinking about a phase-out strategy and withdraw the permits granted to new development. In the EU, nuclear is a national competence, but the consequences of a major disaster will not stay within the borders of one member state, nor will one company be able to pay for the damage control.  Massive investment in renewable energy and new European infrastucture is the only way to go.

The EU has in recent months demonstrated that it is stuck between  rhetoric on climate change and conflicting industrial interests. While the European Commission’s climate department maintains that the EU’s priority is to lead in climate change measures and take over global green tech markets, its trade people have been busy watering down South Korean environmental standards for cars in the context of the new free trade agreement.

A recently leaked document from the Commission shows how EU officials have been engaging in lobbying to bring down car standards proposed in Korea. If adopted, the standards would have required European vehicle manufacturers to comply with stricter limits on CO2/km. The Commission communicated that as a result of consultations, the Koreans have agreed to adjust formula used to calculate CO2 reductions, give derogations to car-makers who only sell small numbers of cars and grant ecoinnovation credits.

The documents show how the EU executive urged South Korean authorities to consult EU car-makers on the issue. The German car industry strikes again after the long-suffering EU negotiations on CO2 limits for cars ended in 2008 with a long phasing-in period due to strong pressure from the industry. 

It’s puzzling how European leadership in climate protection translates into diplomatic arm-twisting to secure more lenient standards for its industry. If only the EU and its car-makers spent more resources on green innovation and less on fighting for the right to continue polluting practices which will win no prizes in the green technology race.

A new website hosted by the Dutch government promises to track whether industrialised countries fulfil their pledges to help poor countries fight climate change. It is a good first effort, but the site is still a far cry from a transparent tool to convince that money is flowing.

At the Copenhagen climate conference last December, developed countries committed to transferring $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 in climate aid to poor countries. But developing countries have, understandably, called for a mechanism to track these funds to guarantee delivery.

Launched at the Geneva climate finance talk early September, a UN-backed website FastStartFinance.org promises publically available information that “clearly communicates fast start flows and how it is allocated and spent by receiving countries”.

But a few clicks around the website show that only 6 European donors are listed and 27 recipients.

Climate aid to developing countries is key to agreeing a new climate treaty. If rich countries want to convince their poorer counterparts that they will stick to their pledges, international negotiators must agree a transparent tool to oversee aid flows that every party must sign up to.

A food security risk index released by UK-based risk analysis firm Maplecroft this week showed that Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable region to shocks to food supply. The 163-country survey found that African nations make up 36 of the 50 nations most at risk.

The EU, on the other hand, fared reasonable well. Finland was judged to have the safest food future, followed by other Nordic countries. The UK, France and Germany were all declared low risk countries.

But that’s not to say that Europe can relax. The heat wave that swept across Europe this summer did not only provide for comfortable beach weather but also reduced our wheat supplies. Even worse, wildfires and droughts in Russia led the government to ban grain exports for the rest of the year when its wheat harvest dropped by over a quarter from last year.

Such extreme weather conditions are by no means going to get less frequent but rather longer and more intense, if you are to believe climate scientists (which I personally am inclined to do). Enter population growth, and you can already see a food crisis in the making.

Europe won’t be shielded from rising food prices as other regions of the world start to go hungrier. The current situation bears some resemblance to 2007-2008 when world food prices peaked, but the economic crisis is for now working against a crisis by dampening demand for food products. But once recovery starts, the price of oil – and consequently of food – is likely to shoot up again, some analysists predict.

Voices calling for a halt to economic growth are – and will be – only marginal, but mainstream politicians have been slipping sustainable growth into speeches and strategies ever since the public debate on climate change kicked off in 2007. But global action on climate change appears to be slipping ever further into the future as the latest round of UN climate talks this month added more options to the negotiating text rather than narrowing it down.

Maybe it’s time to ditch those flipflops, leave the beach behind and get down to work on an agreement that will halt global warming before it’s too late.

Much reporting has gone into detailing the “weaknesses” of the Copenhagen Accord agreed at the Danish capital last December, and top European officials – most notably Connie Hedegaard, the then climate and energy minister of the host country and now European Climate Action Commissioner, stood up to publicly announce the failure of the talks.

But this pessimism was hardly universal as the US and China advertised the final decision as nothing less than a break-through.

The soon-to-be former chief of the UNFCCC Yvo de Boer gave an interview to EurActiv on Tuesday, arguing that Copenhagen only failed in a legal sense but was a success in a political sense. But you can’t get a deal on a legally-binding agreement if you don’t have a common understanding of what this means, he said.

“I think different people have different perceptions. There are some delegations who, when I asked ‘is a decision of the Conference of Parties legally binding?’ they say ‘yes’. There are others who say ‘no’,” de Boer said.

So what did the European Union set out to achieve in Copenhagen when it stressed the need for a legally binding agreement?

According to de Boer, this could have various interpretations including legally-binding at the international or national level, or through implementation rules. Possibly even all three.

A common definition will clearly have to preceed an agreement on a new treaty. But seeing that much of the precious negotiating time in the run-up to Copenhagen was spent squabbling over the form of the treaty at the expense of substance, key issues like financial governance and technology transfer will have to be worked out first.

Mr de Boer certainly thinks so.