Category: Nuclear Control

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

A new international IAEA technical cooperation project, launched on 2 December 2023 at a United Nations Climate Conference (COP28) side event, will catalyze the IAEA’s existing climate adaptation activities in food and water security to harness the already expansive interregional networks of laboratories and facilitate international collaboration. The new climate adaptation project aims to support national efforts to ensure successful and sustainable solutions to the impacts of climate change.  

Attendees at the side event heard panellists describe how extreme weather events around the world are affecting key natural resources. Floods and droughts, and the near disappearance of essential bodies of water mean that populations everywhere are having to do more with less. Nuclear techniques, the audience heard, work in combination with conventional techniques to help countries to tackle harsh climate conditions, providing accurate data that allows decision-makers to assess the evolving situation, and also offering a range of effective adaptation options. 

“Without isotope hydrology we would know nothing about the effects of climate change on water resources. The same is true for greenhouse gas emissions – if we want to develop targeted mitigation methods we need to identify where they are coming from,” explained Professor Christoph Müller of Justus Liebig University, speaking at the event. 

Participants at the IAEA COP28 side event also heard how the IAEA has been able to help farmers in Namibia precisely identify moisture levels in their fields using nuclear technology, enabling the successful deployment of drip irrigation techniques. By connecting nuclear technology with conventional agricultural techniques, participating farmers have been able to increase water use efficiency by 80 per cent. The IAEA also helps countries to apply other nuclear techniques for food treatment, insect pest control and plant breeding. At the moment, 146 countries are working with the IAEA on technical cooperation projects that address climate change adaptation.  

Panellists at the event lauded the importance of partnerships in implementing sustainable and far-reaching solutions to climate change challenges, including through the provision of funds for technical cooperation efforts. “We recognize that we need to scale up our engagement in the development sector and that we need to use technology to make crops more resistant to drought and other things,” said Zamir Iqbal, Islamic Development Bank Vice President of Finance. “We believe in the technology being promoted by the IAEA – we can make good use of it and our member states can benefit from it for sustainable development,” he added. 

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

The IAEA has opened its Atoms4Climate pavilion at the annual UN Climate Change Conference (COP28) amid a rising wave of international support for scaling up the use of nuclear power to achieve global climate goals by slashing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming to net zero by 2050.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi on 1 December officially kicked off the start of almost two weeks of activities and events at the IAEA pavilion aimed at raising awareness of the benefits of nuclear technology and applications in both mitigating and adapting to the effects of the climate crisis. The event featured a lively conversation on the growing support for nuclear power between Mr Grossi and Isabelle Boemeke, also known as Isodope, the world’s first nuclear influencer.

Earlier, Mr Grossi unveiled a landmark IAEA statement supported by dozens of countries that underscored the need for expanded use of nuclear power to fight climate change, achieve energy security and sustainable economic development, and build “a low carbon bridge” to the future. The IAEA appeal came amid other initiatives at COP28 also calling for a significant increase in nuclear power capacity to address the global climate crisis, and ahead of the first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit, to be hosted jointly by the IAEA and Belgium in Brussels in March 2024.

“If we want to achieve our climate targets, it will simply be impossible without nuclear energy,” Mr Grossi said as he announced the statement at an event together with Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan as well as Satkaliyev Almassadam, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Juhani Damski, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment of Finland.

Nuclear power currently provides almost 10 percent of the world’s electricity production, equivalent to around 25 percent of all low carbon electricity and contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Over the last five decades, nuclear power has avoided the emission of some 70 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases, including 30 gigatonnes alone since the start of the 21st century, according to the IAEA statement which also underscored nuclear power’s role in ensuring energy supply security, stabilizing electrical grids, and reducing local air pollution.

“We understand with more than 60 percent of electricity generation powered by coal, we see no other significant alternative other than nuclear power plants to ensure reliable electricity supplies,” Energy Minister Almassadam said about Kazakhstan, which is considering building a new nuclear power plant.

Mr Grossi noted that global attitudes towards nuclear power have undergone a massive shift since 2019, when he attended his first climate summit at COP25 in Madrid shortly after becoming IAEA Director General. The question he had asked himself then, he said, was: “How can this annual conference talking about energy issues and how they impact the environment be taking place without talking about the source of energy that provides around 25 percent of the world’s electricity? This was an omission and I’m not here to debate the reasons for that. The good thing is this has been overcome and we are putting things right, in the right perspective.”

Several authoritative studies, including by the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), suggest that a significant increase in world nuclear power capacity will be needed to limit the average global temperature increase since pre-industrial times to 1.5 degrees Celsius, thereby averting the most devastating effects of climate change.

Finland, seeking to become carbon neutral by 2035, in April began operating a new 1600 megawatt-electric nuclear reactor at Olkiluoto that will provide almost 15 percent of the country’s electricity and has helped bring down power prices for consumers by some 75 percent. A recent public opinion poll shows more than two-thirds of Finns support nuclear power while only 6 percent oppose it.

Mr Damski attributed high Finnish public approval of nuclear power to several factors, including transparent communications about its decarbonization and energy security benefits, early involvement by policy makers, local stakeholder engagement, and a national programme to develop what is set to become the world’s first operative facility to dispose of high level nuclear waste.

“Nuclear energy has a very key role to play in climate change mitigation,” Mr Damski said. “This is a strong tool for the climate battle, and this is why it’s important for us in Finland.”

But nuclear power also plays an important role in sustainable socioeconomic development. Bangladesh, Egypt and Turkey are all constructing their first nuclear power reactors, and many of the almost 30 countries that are considering introducing nuclear power are in the developing world and working with the IAEA in developing the necessary infrastructure for a safe and secure nuclear power programme.

Armenia, where a single 416 MWe nuclear reactor generates about one third of the country’s electricity, has a longstanding engagement with the Agency in its efforts to ensure its safe long-term operation and effective plant life management. The country is now looking to build a new reactor to ensure energy security and economic growth, according to President Khachaturyan. “Nuclear is a very important question for Armenia,” he said.

Source: International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA

As world leaders convene at this year’s UN Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP28, the IAEA will host and participate in around 50 events from 30 November to 12 December 2023, highlighting the solutions nuclear science and technology can provide in climate change mitigation, adaptation, and monitoring.

The IAEA’s Atoms4Climate pavilion in the Blue Zone will feature events focussing on on four areas: energy, food, oceans and water. Low carbon nuclear energy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while nuclear techniques can be used to enhance global food security, monitor ocean health, and improve access to clean water — all of which are impacted by climate change.

IAEA Director General, Rafael Mariano Grossi, will announce the IAEA Statement on Nuclear Power supported by dozens of countries, in a flagship event on Friday 1 December that will highlight the role of nuclear power as part of the energy mix. The event will be livestreamed. 

Speaking at an  IAEA Board of Governors meeting ahead of COP28, Mr Grossi said: “For the first time in the history of COP, nuclear countries will be able to say yes, we are here, yes, nuclear energy is part of the solution for this global climate crisis that we have.”

Mr Grossi will also join French President Emmanuel Macron and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Saturday 2 December, to announce the first-ever nuclear energy summit to be held in Brussels next year. The event will be livestreamed. Read more.

See the IAEA @COP28 page for the complete list of IAEA and partner events.

Net Zero

The latest Emissions Gap Report from the United Nations Environment Programme indicates the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 28 per cent to limit the increase in global average temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and by 42 per cent to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius  — both goals set in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. COP28 will mark the first “global stocktake” under the agreement, a comprehensive assessment of the progress that countries have made on reaching their goals to cut emissions.

There is consensus within the climate community that energy sector carbon emissions will have to be reduced to net zero by around the middle of the century to meet these goals. Nuclear power, which accounts for about 10 per cent of global electricity generation and provides about one quarter of the world’s low carbon electricity, has a key role to play in a net zero future.

What is net zero? What is the role of nuclear power and innovations?

Nuclear power offers affordability, resilience and security of energy supply and can be used alongside renewables to achieve net zero. The IAEA’s Atoms4NetZero initiative provides decision makers with comprehensive, data-driven energy scenario modelling that includes the full potential of nuclear power in contributing to net zero emissions, helping to fill a gap in studies used by governments and financial institutions in support of new nuclear power projects.

On 5 December, high level international representatives will meet at the Atoms4Climate Pavilion for an event entitled Is Nuclear Deployment Too Slow for Net Zero? The panel will relate their experiences, with the aim of dispelling the common myth that nuclear energy is too slow to help meet decarbonization targets.

On 10 December, the Atoms4Climate Pavilion will host a forum on the theme of Building Clean and Resilient Energy Systems.