Environmental Security in the Czech Republic: Status and Concerns in the Post Communist Era

摘要

The Czech Republic has made great strides toward reconciling its political and economic development with environmental protection and security issues since its recent democratization. Although new technological and legislative efforts continue to work at reducing emissions from automobiles, industries, power plants and coal mining, the Republic is committed to continuing its battle against air and water pollution, poor waste management, and needless destruction of nature. Shifting the structure of primary energy sources to qualitatively better fuels, along with the introduction of less energy-consuming technologies and the activation of new nuclear reactors, would eventually replace most of the output of coal burning power plants. However, the use of nuclear power has been opposed by several political and environmental activists groups. At the international level, Austria's opposition to the Temelin Nuclear Power plant is of great concern since Austria, as a non-nuclear state, propagates negative information about nuclear power to its citizens and other countries.