Kazumi Matsui, Hiroshima City Mayor © Public Relations Office of Hiroshima City

Hiroshima Mayor urges Japan to reform its energy policy

At the recent anniversary celebration of the Hiroshima bombing, Mayor Kazumi Matsui of Hiroshima, Japan urged the country to make headway on a clean energy policy, rid of nuclear power.

In his Declaration for Peace address, Mayor Matsui spoke of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear power plant accident on 11 March 2011, saying that it bore semblance with Hiroshima's experience with being  exposed to radiation 67 years ago.

He also quoted the late Ichiro Moritaki, an atomic bomb survivor that "Nuclear energy and humankind cannot coexist" and called on “the Japanese government to establish without delay an energy policy that guards the safety and security of the people."

"I ask the government of the only country to experience an atomic bombing to accept as its own the resolve of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mindful of the unstable situation surrounding us in Northeast Asia, please display bolder leadership in the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons”.

The nuclear accidents in Japan have been changing the Japanese energy policy significantly. A new energy policy is under intense deliberations, with a wide range of stakeholders contributing to the discussions.

The anniversary ceremony was also attended by Tamotsu Baba, Mayor of Namie, Fukushima, whose town is still designated as an evacuation area. He said “We are in common with Hiroshima and Nagasaki in terms of far-ranging leakage of radiation. We would like to go for our reconstruction learning lessons from that of Hiroshima”, Baba said.