HSBC and BNP Paribas - Nuclear is a bad investment

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HSBC and BNP Paribas - Nuclear is a bad investment

HSBC and BNP Paribas - Nuclear is a bad investment

The Jaitapur plant is being funded by foreign banks HSBC and BNP Paribas. May 11 marks the two month anniversary of the Fukushima disaster.We are asking the two foreign banks funding Jaitapur :HSBC and BNP Paribas, not to finance the unsafe reactor park. May 11 is also the Strategic day at HSBC and Annual General meeting for BNP Paribas and the board will be taking major decisions for this year.

You should write to these foreign banks asking them not to support the Jaitapur reactor park.

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Dear board members of BNP Paribas & HSBC,

I am emailing you as a nuclear disaster continues to unfold at the Fukushima power plant, to express my serious concerns about your bank’s involvement in the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power station in India. In the context of Fukushima, this raises significant concerns since the proposed construction site is in a high-damage earthquake zone, and the reactor technology has the same inherent weakness as Fukushima: a dependence on active cooling to avoid meltdown, which is required even when the reactor is not operating or generating electricity. In Jaitapur, the Indian government and the utility are proposing the world’s largest nuclear installation, while no waste management plan has been submitted or is even under consideration. Nationally, India has no nuclear waste policy.

Further the proposed plant has raised many serious local issues in the context of environmental and social governance, including –

•	The EIA (Environment Impact Assessment) process is flawed as the authorities provided no response to the various questions raised by the public.
•	Of the approximately 2400 families who have to sell their land in order to build the plant - only 154 have sold or accepted the compensation so far. 
•	Local villagers are particularly concerned about the impact on their livelihoods - especially fisherman and farmers. 
•	The Alphonso mango – an iconic and valuable agricultural commodity - is exported from this region, and local producers are particularly concerned about the impact on this aspect of their livelihoods.
•	There have been violent confrontations between local authorities and those opposed to the construction of the plant, and local opposition to the plant is growing steadily stronger.

As a board member, you have a responsibility to your shareholders to ensure your investments meet the highest operational, safety and regulatory criteria. Given the above, Jaitapur clearly does not meet these requirements.

In this context, I am urging the board to instruct management to withdraw from the consortium funding this project, which is risky in both operational and reputational terms.

Thank you for your attention.

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Following the nuclear accident at Fukushima in Japan there is unprecedented public attention on the risks of nuclear energy, and countries the world over are rethinking their nuclear plans. We also need to increase the pressure on our government to stop this plant.