Interested contributors have until 28 April 2023 to submit abstracts for the IAEA's second International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power: Atoms4NetZero, to be held in Vienna, Austria, from 9 to 13 October 2023.
The conference will provide an opportunity for policy makers, academics and other experts to discuss the role of nuclear power in mitigating climate change and in contributing to the transition to net zero emissions, as well as challenges facing the nuclear sector and tapping its full potential through innovation, improved economics and stakeholder engagement. The event will also serve as a platform for the nuclear community to actively engage in a dialogue with all relevant stakeholders at the policy and technical levels.
"In these unprecedented times, as countries seek to address the climate crisis along with the need for greater energy security, this conference is timely," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "For half a century, nuclear power has been a major source of clean and reliable electricity and together with renewables such as hydro, solar and wind power, nuclear power can be the backbone of clean energy systems, helping to mitigate climate change and achieve the sustainable development goals."
To achieve those objectives, a significant deployment of low carbon energy technologies is needed. In the case of nuclear power, the existing generating capacity will need to significantly expand by 2050 if net zero goals are to be reached, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA). Over the last five decades, nuclear power has avoided around 70 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, continues to avoid more than 1 Gt CO2 every year, and remains the second source of low carbon electricity behind hydro power.
The conference follows the inaugural event in October 2019 that featured the heads of all major international organizations working on energy and climate change including the IPCC, IEA and the United Nations Framework on Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Topics for discussion will include the mitigation challenge and implications for the energy sector; the climate-resilience of energy systems; the roles of existing, evolutionary, and innovative nuclear power systems as well as nuclear-renewable energy systems; enabling environments for achieving the full potential of nuclear power, and international cooperation and stakeholder engagement.
"Since our first climate conference in 2019, interest in nuclear power and its role in climate change mitigation has grown," said Mr Grossi. "This IAEA conference can therefore play an important role in supporting countries towards the safe and economical deployment of nuclear power to help achieve net zero goals by 2050."
