IAEA approval for Japan’s Fukushima water discharge stirs global debate

An international watchdog has given the green light to Japan’s controversial proposal to discharge treated waste water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, declaring that the process aligns with global norms.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has assessed that the impact on the environment of such a release will be “negligible,” with the Fukushima site rapidly running out of storage capacity for the treated water initially utilised in nuclear reactor cooling. However, this proposal has garnered significant opposition, predominantly from China and South Korea.

Although Tokyo has yet to provide a timetable for the planned discharge, the scheme must first be authorised by an overseeing regulator. The catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant took place in 2011 when the facility…