The climate crisis is due to the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, but we are often told it is “really” about something else: economic growth, population growth, nature deprivation, deforestation or lack of investment in new energy systems. The first is based on multiple misunderstandings, makes little quantitative sense and reverses cause and effect; nor is “growth ideology” a significant impediment to climate action. The second is even more quantitatively implausible than the first. The third is contradicted by actual rural-urban political patterns. Faith in forest carbon sequestration has given rise to a large offset industry, but forests can readily become a net source rather than a sink in a warming world. Finally, while investments in energy efficiency and renewable sources are essential, they are not the same as equivalent reductions in fossil fuels in a world of expanding energy use. This is made clear by the experience of Germany, a world leader in green development and also a regional laggard in reducing emissions. There are many other goals to be pursued, but directly suppressing fossil fuel use is the sine qua non of avoiding a climate catastrophe.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in 2011 led to some drastic reactions in Germany, in particular an immediate shutdown of older nuclear power plants. This event is therefore often seen as a turning point, or a major accelerator for the German Energiewende. We investigate the short-term effects, but also put the event into a longer, ten-year perspective. This shows that hardly any trend in the energy policy was strongly affected by policy decisions of 2011. Major trends are the increase of renewable electricity sources, the phase-out of nuclear power and a slight increase in energy efficiency, while total energy consumption and also greenhouse gas emissions remained stable in the decade 2005–2015/16. We also provide some tentative explanations for these developments.

In this chapter, we discuss the evolution of the field of ‘ethics of nuclear energy’, regarding its past, present and future. We will first review the history of this field in the previous four decades, focusing on new and emerging challenges of nuclear energy production and waste disposal, in light of several important developments. Four of the most pressing ethical challenges will be further reviewed in the chapter. First, what is a morally ‘acceptable’ nuclear energy production method, if we consider the existing and possible new technologies? Second, provided a new tendency to consider nuclear waste disposal with several countries, what would be the new ethical and governance challenges of these multinational collaborations? Third, how should we deal with the (safety) challenges of the new geographic distribution of nuclear energy, tilting towards emerging economies with less experience with nuclear technology? Fourth, nuclear energy projects engender highly emotional controversies. Neither ignoring the emotions of the public nor taking them as a reason to prohibit or restrict a technology – we call them technocratic populist pitfalls respectively – seem to be able to guide responsible policy making.