The crisis at a Japanese nuclear plant damaged after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami has already led some other nations to reconsider or slow the development of nuclear plants in the near term, said Christiana Figueres, head of the climate change secretariat.
"It is very difficult to predict what we will see from here - whether this will mean a slow development of nuclear energy and what that will mean for some countries' goals (to curb greenhouse gases)," she told reporters after a two-day conference in the Mexican capital.
Nuclear energy has been promoted by some as a non-carbon source of power and if fewer such plans come online, those countries will have to seek energy from other sources, she said.
"In the best cases, those will be renewable energy sources," she said.
Figueres' task is to lay the groundwork for the next U.N.-sponsored climate change summit due to take place in Durban, South Africa, in December. Among the building blocks for that meeting is creating a "green fund" to help poor countries cope with new climate change realities. Read the full report here.
Source: Reuters, Mexico City, U.S.
