Former political leaders can end up doing a variety of jobs. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore travels the world talking about climate change whilst former Japanese prime-minister Kan Naoto is pursuing an anti-nuclear campaign. Earlier this year, he brought this message with him to Australia talking about his experience as prime-minister during the Fukushima power plant meltdown. Australia being a major exporter of uranium is obviously a place where he would like his message to be heard. He talked about how during the Fukushima disaster his government had come close to evacuating people from a 250 kilometre radius of Fukushima. This would have included Tokyo and would have involved displacing 40% of the population or 50 million people. At the time of Kan's visit to Australia there were plans for Australian prime-minister Tony Abbott to visit India where he was to sign an agreement to sell Australian uranium for the first time. When Kan resigned as prime-minister due to criticism of his initial handling of the Fukushima incident and the slow pace of reconstruction he later won approval for his plans to phase out nuclear power. The legislation he drew up to realise this aim was overturned by the election of an LDP government led by Abe Shinzo in 2012. His pleas for Australia to reduce the world's dependency on nuclear power will fall on deaf ears as the Abbott government has no interest in the renewable energy sector.
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