Nuclear power as a sole solution cant scale fast enough. (Oil and coal was that 'good' of an energy source.) It will be part of the mix though. Meaning - you actually always want ho have a mix of technologies to guarantee energy production safety (as you do now). Some countries will decide against it - some wont. Thats up to them.
On a very basic level, we are introducing a 'carbon price' (another cost factor) - which might be lower for developing nations (they probably will get screwed anyhow, later..) - and then every country can decide on their own - how its getting there. But if one of the major polluters doesnt - we have a problem. The smaller ones we can 'force' wth trade negotiations, but we need alliances on the big ones - if there is a cleft , it doesnt work. Especially not in free market societies.
And even if - lets say nuclear alone would work - you couldnt scale up purely electric vehicle traffic as fast as needed.
To give you an indication. Germany has just pledged to reach 0 CO2 emissions by 2050 and 55% of that by 2030. Much of that will come from individual traffic. And its a mix of everything, so planting trees in Africa, making sure South America doesnt need to cut away its forrests at the 'ususal rate' in trade deals, going into electric car production, thermal retrofitting on houses, implementing smart grids and wind and solar power - to a larger extent and cutting back at the middle classes - with impacts on the poor as well.
(You then say, that you'll compensate the poor, but thats actually tough, if you do it at low growth to recession - because what usually happens is sector inflation in 'food products' for 1-2 years, and all of the benefits for the poor are gone again (Because you gave them out equally) and suddenly they are in the food sector. So the bulk of what you gain by a CO2 price will always come from middle classes (and industry, but you want them to use that for innovations), and the poor likely will always suffer most.)
If you would go only solar, you'd benefit China most. But solar also is the most efficient of the green energy sources currently. But then its also not so efficient in germany (sun), so in the end its always a mix.
Also germany will not use nuclear power - but that was also a democratic decision (because of dangers, and the cost that come from storing the waste).
On storing nuclear waste. There is still no designated 'final storage' area/facility in the world. Governments usually can 'freeze' dedication/purpose of a patch of land for about 100 years. Some waste compounds from nuclear energy have a half-life time of a few billion years. This is actually how the story really went. In the 50s (think Fallout
) the entire world was more or less excited about free energy - and thought, that the waste problem would be an afterthought. So they just stored the waste next to facilities to 'concentrate' uranium. Then they found out, that that might not be such a good idea. Science to look for final storage facilities for nuclear waste was done by some oddballs, with no utterly convincing results so far. Now china also is engaged in it - so maybe. You usually look at desserts, but they also have to have the right rock layer formations, and all in all - you are making the issue bigger and bigger, for generations after yourself. So if you think that you dont have to - you try to mostly cut out nuclear, or cut it out entirely. From todays perspective. You can still have some (just make sure the problem doesnt get to big, by making it a trend basically.)
Solar is actually very efficient already. But the issue is, that you have to keep the amount of energy in the grids stable. And solar is everything but that (cloudy day...) - so you need a mix of other energy reactors you can click online, if solar goes off. And you need new forms of energy storage. (Pump water generators in the mountains arent enough, and also environment...) And you need new forms of transnational power transmission solutions ideally ('power from the dessert'), but thats then a political issue, and probably wont do..
So that has an impact on time tables (because everything isn't just viable at once), and...
Yeah. So you remove growth expectation from millennials.
in Europe. In the US, we'll have to see.
