GenevaOn Friday 27 May, in a meeting organized in Geneva, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, Rosatom, declared its readiness to notify and consult neighbouring States about its nuclear power plans within the framework of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention), although the Russian Federation is not as yet a Party to that treaty.
The declaration comes at a time when, according to the World Nuclear Association, the Russian Federation is planning to nearly double its nuclear energy output by 2020. It also comes at a time when nuclear safety and the impacts of nuclear radiation on the environment and human health have re-emerged as a particular cause of concern, following the recent Fukushima Daiichi power plant disaster in Japan.
Rosatom came to Geneva to meet the secretariat to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Espoo Convention to learn about the Convention and the practice of transboundary impact assessment. Rosatom expressed its willingness to use the procedure defined in the Convention to notify neighbouring States about planned power plants and storage sites, and about their potential transboundary environmental impact. As an illustration of this new policy, Rosatom will soon notify Russia’s neighbours of its plan to construct a low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal site at Sosnovy Bor in the Leningrad region. It has already begun to hold consultations with interested States on the potential environmental impact of its nuclear power plant to be constructed in the country’s Kaliningrad region.
As the Russian Federation is not a Party to the Espoo Convention it does not have any obligation to carry out the Convention’s procedures. However, Russian enterprises have been applying provisions of the Convention to certain projects with potential transboundary impacts, including to the Nord Stream gas pipeline now being constructed under the Baltic Sea.
The Espoo Convention is the only international legal instrument to require countries to notify and consult each other on potential environmental impacts when planning new nuclear projects. The Convention has so far been applied to over 50 nuclear projects. To facilitate its application and to promote the good practices with regard to nuclear energy-related activities, parties to the Convention are organizing a panel discussion on such activities in Geneva on 22 June, within the framework of the fifth session of the Convention’s governing body.
For further information, please visit: http://unece.org/env/eia/welcome.html
Notes to editors
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo Convention) requires that an environmental impact assessment be carried out for a planned project that is likely to have an adverse transboundary environmental impact and lays down the obligation for member States to notify and consult each other with regard to these projects.
The Convention entered into force 1997 and it has 45 parties across North America, Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, plus the European Union as a regional organization. The Russian Federation signed the Convention but has not as yet ratified it and is therefore not bound by the treaty. The Russian Federation shares land borders with 14 States and maritime borders with 2.
Rosatom, the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation, incorporates more than 250 enterprises and scientific institutions, including all civil nuclear companies of the Russian Federation. Rosatom is the largest utility in the Russian Federation and it produces over 40 per cent of electricity in the European part of the country.
Ref: ECE/ENV/11/P21