The goal of limiting the global temperature increase to well below 2˚C requires new climate policies, investment incentives, and a massive adoption of low carbon energy technologies, including nuclear power, participants at an IAEA side event to the Bonn Climate Change Conference heard yesterday.
“As we look at the future of nuclear power and the issue of climate change, it is worth taking a moment to lay out a roadmap showing how nuclear energy innovations can support our Member States with their national climate action plans,” said Mikhail Chudakov, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy, in his video message to the event.
At the two-week-long 23rd Conference of Parties (COP23) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the IAEA is leading three side events on energy policy, sustainable development, nuclear power and climate change.
“Existing nuclear power plants account for a third of the low carbon energy produced globally,” Chudakov said. “To meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, we need to substantially increase nuclear power capacity by 2050 and beyond.”
Under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, all Parties submit their planned actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Starting from 2020, governments will submit updates to their NDCs every five years to the UNFCCC with increasingly ambitious climate actions to achieve the Paris Agreement goals.
At the side event on ‘Connecting Roadmaps for Innovation in Nuclear Energy to the NDC Timeline’, senior representatives from the industry discussed how advanced nuclear energy technologies can help achieve a low carbon future. Panellists outlined options to incorporate innovative nuclear power technologies into climate action plans and NDC timelines.