From Palladium Magazine, October 28
When the Finnish Green Party, known as Vihreät, came together for its annual assembly in 2022, few people anticipated anything unusual. On the morning of May 21st, hundreds of people assembled at the local sports arena in Joensuu, a small town in eastern Finland. Casually dressed party members chattered in small groups, sipping coffee while munching on vegan cinnamon buns.
I was one of the few people in the room who understood the significance of the meeting we were about to attend.
When I woke up that day, I already knew this was going to be a historic event. Vihreät, the first green party in the world to abort its stance against nuclear power, was about to complete its pro-nuclear pivot by becoming an active supporter. Despite the controversy, they were about to adopt official statements accepting nuclear energy as a crucial part of the plan to tackle climate change.
For me, it was a moment long overdue. I had learned both politics and environmentalism at my mother’s knee. A longtime donor to the WWF and other environmental organizations, she was active in the centrist Coalition Party, which has historically been one of the most pro-nuclear parties in Finland. I had followed in her footsteps. After a stint as leader of Finland’s Liberal Party and several years chairing Suomen Ekomodernistit—the Ecomodernist Society of Finland—I formally joined the Greens in 2019.
Over 400 selected members with a right to vote had gathered in the annual assembly. For the party, this is the most important event of the year, with the possible exception of elections. It’s a weekend of lively political debate during which members vote on important changes to the party line.
It was the culmination of a story that began in 2008. That year, a coalition of Greens dissented from the party and began Greens for Science and Technology (GST). A broadly pro-technology working group within the party, GST eventually began to agitate and promote a green vision of nuclear energy in Finland. The GST began by advocating two goals: policy based on scientific evidence, and a “technology-neutral” approach to achieving climate goals. The logic was simple: the goal of reducing carbon emissions is more important than the means by which this is done. Studies by prominent groups like the IPCC and UNECE were showing that the life-cycle emissions of nuclear power plants are the lowest of all low-carbon energy sources.
At the time, in a party in which many activists had got their start in anti-nuclear protests, the proposal went off like a bomb. At first, it was met with accusations and intimidation: “You’re in the wrong party!” Some even made accusations that the group was being paid by the nuclear industry. But our working group employed a strategy of professional engagement. We made sure to be visible whenever the nuclear issue was discussed, including on social media, and maintained a diplomatic frame even on those occasions when opponents became hostile.
The strategy worked: while the call for pragmatism was met with resistance from many, support for nuclear energy began to grow among the ranks. This turn was supported by a number of senior leaders who explicitly began to favor a change in policy. The former party chair and GST co-founder Osmo Soininvaara had been on board from the start. Later, another former chair named Touko Aalto began voicing support for nuclear energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Other leading party members came out in support of nuclear power as well.
Eventually, pro-nuclear advocates won policy changes too. In 2014, the party agreed to stop pursuing the premature closure of existing nuclear power plants. And in 2016, the party’s climate and energy policy expert hinted at accepting advanced reactors....
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