VIENNA, 10 DECEMBER – The new IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi, on his first official trip since taking office, will travel to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Madrid this week to highlight the role that nuclear power can play in the global transition to clean energy.
”Nuclear power provides around one-third of the world’s low-carbon electricity and already plays a significant role in mitigating climate change”, said Grossi, who assumed office on 3 December. ”Many of our 171 Member States believe that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve sustainable development and meet global climate goals without significant use of nuclear energy”.
Grossi will take part tomorrow in a high-level UN side event at COP25 on Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) – to ensure access to affordable and reliable energy. The event, entitled ”Accelerating the energy transformation in support of sustainable development and the Paris Agreement”, will focus on initiatives that could have a significant impact toward achieving SDG 7 goals, help close the energy access gap in a sustainable way and promote climate action by transitioning toward zero-carbon energy solutions.
The IAEA director general will also hold bilateral meetings with high-level officials, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Patricia Espinosa, as well as the heads of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
With around two-thirds of the world’s electricity still generated through burning fossil fuels, and despite growing investment in renewable energy sources, global emissions of greenhouse gases reached a record high last year.
