The COP26 climate summit has begun in Glasgow which brings countries together to work towards taking action to tackle climate change – one of our most pressing issues as can seen from the increase in extreme weather from all over the globe.

We need to stop using fossil fuels as soon as we can and it maybe an inconvenient truth to some, but we need to expand nuclear power to tackle climate change - along with an expansion of renewables. Modern reactors are safe and often use nuclear waste as a power source – and the remaining waste can be safely stored. They can provide a base load that renewables cannot. As developing countries develop, they will need more energy to raise living standards and nuclear provides abundant clean energy without emitting greenhouse gases like CO2.

Where countries have got rid of nuclear power stations they have been replaced with coal - like Germany - and gas emitting vast amounts of CO2 and causing thousands of deaths from air pollution.

Climate campaigners like George Monbiot, Mark Lynas and James Hansen have all accepted the need for nuclear to tackle climate change and there is a campaigning group set up by a former Extinction Rebellion activist - Emergency Reactor http://www.emergencyreactor.org – to campaign for nuclear energy with environmentalists who recognise that if we are serious about tackling climate change, we need nuclear power as part of the solution.

Mark Dawes

Scarborough Road, Leytonstone