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Opinion | To the Pacific islands, the West’s support for Japan’s Fukushima nuclear waste ocean dumping is hypocrisy
- Having been used for nuclear tests and dumping by the US and France, the Pacific islands deeply oppose Japan’s plan and see it as a ‘nuclear legacy’ issue
- That the likes of Australia and the US support Japan’s plan just ups the region’s geopolitical stakes – and gives China a trump card
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International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Mariano Grossi, after travelling to Tokyo earlier this month to present a report endorsing Japan’s approach to discharging Fukushima’s treated nuclear waste water into the Pacific, has been trying to convince Japan’s sceptical Pacific neighbours of the authenticity of the report’s findings.
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The IAEA, which has opened the door for Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) to dump about 1.3 million tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean, insists the controlled, gradual release would have a “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment”.
But the small island nations of the Pacific remain deeply concerned about Japan’s intention to dump nuclear waste into the ocean. They see this as not merely a nuclear safety issue but a “nuclear legacy issue” – the Pacific has been used as a nuclear weapon testing and dumping site since the end of the second world war.
Grossi has assured that IAEA experts would return to Fukushima repeatedly, for as long as the process takes, to take samples at different locations and confirm the water remains safe. But what happens if the water discharged were found to be unsafe? Won’t it be too late to fix the “scientific” problem then?
IAEA’s recent actions raise questions over whether and how much it respects the viewpoints of the small Pacific nations.
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The Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues, made up of civil society groups and NGOs, has asked Japan to explain its disregard for the findings of the independent Pacific expert panel and why it used the IAEA’s report instead to justify the ocean dumping of nuclear waste. “We do not feel assured by the IAEA’s confidence in the safety of Japan’s proposal as the agency’s remit is promoting the safe use of nuclear energy,” it said.
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