A draft final document penned by the President of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (Indonesian Libran Nuevas Cabactulan) has been circulating at the United Nations — and the internet — in the past 24 hours.

After a quick read through of the draft final document, it is clear that the core sticking points amongst States parties remain the same: disagreement over the voluntary vs. binding nature of the Additional Protocol, which would strengthen IAEA ability to oversee and inspect nuclear programs; the Mideast Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, for which a distinct conference in 2012 has been proposed and which Israel is being lobbied to attend; and the ever-present debate over a timeline for disarmament by the nuclear weapon states.

However, the draft document also makes clear how forcefully the Non-Aligned Movement states are seeking to delink non-proliferation from nuclear energy; the document text quite stridently defends their right to peacefully develop nuclear energy.  Some interesting points are highlighted below:

33: “The Conference reaffirms that nothing in the Treaty should be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all States parties to the Treaty to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in conformity with the non-proliferation obligations under the Treaty.”

And 34, which reaffirms the right of States parties to the Treaty to develop “nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.”

35 is also emphatic: “The Conference urges that in all activities designed to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, preferential treatment be given to the non-nuclear-weapons States parties to the Treaty, taking the needs of developing countries, in particular, into account.”

Also notable:

On non-NPT states parties (103): “The Conference urges India and Pakistan to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapon States and to place all their nuclear facilities under comprehensive Agency safeguards without conditions and promptly.”
Notably absent is any mention of Israel (although they are called out by name later).

On diplomacy: “The Conference emphasized that responses to concerns over compliance with any obligation under the Treaty by any State Party should be pursued by diplomatic means, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty.”

Unsurprisingly, the text of the final document does not mention Iran by name, but does express concern “with cases of non-compliance of the Treaty by States parties, and calls on those States non-compliant to move promptly to full compliance with their obligations.”

On the Additional Protocol: point 25 “notes that the entry into force and implementation of additional protocols in non-nuclear weapons States is of vital importance for IAEA to be able to provide credible assurances about the exclusively peaceful nature of non-nuclear-weapon States’ nuclear programmes.”

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On an unrelated note, it seems likely that the United Nations Security Council will wait until the Lebanese presidency of the UNSC is over, i.e. until June, to begin discussing the fourth round of sanctions against Iran.  This saves face for Lebanon, and will also allow the NPT RevCon to get the attention it warrants during this last, closing week.

In the arms control community, the third pillar of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) — the right to peacefully use nuclear energy — is like the ugly duckling, marginalized while the other two pillars — non-proliferation and disarmament — are more loudly championed.

Nonetheless, the right to peaceful use of nuclear energy technology is an equal pillar of the treaty, and an increasingly important one as the international community struggles to grapple with climate change.

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change today released a report that clearly outlines how a carbon-based energy market contributes to climate change:

At the global level, the energy system – supply, transformation, delivery and use – is the dominant contributor to climate change, representing around 60 per cent of total current greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

And:

Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels are major contributors to the unpredictable effects of climate change, and to urban air pollution and acidification of land and water.

The report also emphasizes that the energy industry will have to be at the forefront of reform towards more sustainable, responsible, environmentally-friendly technology in order to mitigate against climate-change causing greenhouse gas emissions:

Reducing the carbon intensity of energy – that is, the amount of carbon emitted per unit of energy consumed – is a key objective in reaching long- term climate goals. As long as the primary energy mix is biased towards fossil fuels, this would be difficult to achieve with currently available fossil fuel-based energy technologies. Given that the world economy is expected to double in size over the next twenty years, the world’s consumption of energy will also increase significantly if energy supply, conversion and use continue to be inefficient. Energy system design, providing stronger incentives for reduced GHG emissions in supply and increased end-use efficiency, will therefore be critical for reducing the risk of irreversible, catastrophic climate change.

Especially after the failure of COP15 and the resulting Copenhagen Accord to provide binding commitments on the part of States Parties to mitigate against rising greenhouse gas emissions, affected nations might look for rigorous support of nuclear energy at the NPT RevCon.

Moreover, the UN report adds that the push for cleaner energy technologies also comes at a time when the Millennium Development Goals call for universal energy access, especially lacking amongst the world’s poor:

Worldwide, approximately 3 billion people rely on traditional biomass for cooking and heating, and about 1.5 billion have no access to electricity. Up to a billion more have access only to unreliable electricity networks. The “energy-poor” suffer the health consequences of inefficient combustion of solid fuels in inadequately ventilated buildings, as well as the economic consequences of insufficient power for productive income-generating activities and for other basic services such as health and education. In particular, women and girls in the developing world are disproportionately affected in this regard.

If the international community designs to both decrease greenhouse gas emissions and expand energy access, then nuclear energy emerges as the least-bad currently available option en route to sustainable energy and away from fossil fuel consumption.

Yes, there are proliferation risks involved in peaceful nuclear energy use.  Yes, there are environmental concerns.  The international community should make every effort to secure nuclear energy facilities while also hastening the move towards other alternatives.

But nuclear energy expansion can be a stepping stone towards those cleaner technologies, a necessary evil that nonetheless should be emphasized and supported as a way to mitigate against climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions, reduce our dependence on fossil fuel consumption, and broaden energy access to all.  

The end goal is still clean technologies that don’t carry proliferation risks, like hydro, solar, and wind.  However, given our competing priorities – tackling climate change, reducing energy poverty, and providing security against proliferation risks – nuclear energy as a necessary evil en route to a global economy that can fully support renewable energy might be our best option.

Lest there are a few of you out there who have flirted with the notion that the so-called “Nuclear Spring” would cause the rest of the world, particularly the non-nuclear weapon states, to hold hands and sing “kumbaya”, Colum Lynch’s report from Monday’s UN General Assembly debate on Disarmament and World Security provides a chilly does of reality.    

Via Lynch:

I suspect that those who actually believe that the NPT Review Conference will be a cakewalk for the U.S. meet in a very small room.  But this does not mean that the Conference is doomed to failure.  Nor is it to say that New START, the NPR, and the Nuclear Security Summit haven’t strengthened the U.S. case that it is revitalizing its commitment to its obligations under the NPT…

Rather, my sense is that Egypt and other NAM states are laying down a marker.  They want to signal that while the actions taken by the U.S. and Russia in recent weeks are welcome, they do not equal disarmament, and as Daryl notes, they certainly do not render null and void the obligations the U.S. and other nuclear weapons states made at previous review conferences.

Three things in particular stood out to me about Ambassador Abdelaziz’s remarks.  First, the issue of a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East will once again be a point of contention.

Second, Abdelaziz’s reference to states outside the treaty reaping the benefits of the treaty suggests to me that the U.S.-India nuclear deal could be a much bigger issue at this review conference than some people think.

Finally, while stockpile reductions are important, non-nuclear weapon states certainly do not see them as a panacea.  As Deepti Choubey pointed out in her excellent 2008 study on the attainability of new nuclear bargains,

The world’s reaction to the Nuclear Posture Review is likely to be especially important in this regard.  These reactions are still coming in.  On Wednesday the Carnegie Endowment hosted an event on international perspectives on the NPR that I was unable to attend, but I look forward to scouring the transcripts to see what came out of the discussion.

In any event, it looks like Ambassador Susan Burk and her team are going to have their work cut out for them in New York come May.