As the world grapples with the escalating impacts of climate change, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will join global leaders and stakeholders at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP29, to highlight the vast potential of nuclear solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation and monitoring.
The IAEA will showcase nuclear solutions for climate action in some 40 events at COP29, which will take place from 11 to 22 November 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Agency’s Atoms4Climate pavilion will feature an exhibit on nuclear applications, with IAEA experts ready to answer questions about how nuclear energy contributes to net-zero emissions and how nuclear science can address climate-related challenges to food security, water resources and ocean health.
COP29 will build on the global consensus that emerged at COP28 in Dubai, where the Global Stocktake marked a historic turning point with its call for accelerating the deployment of nuclear energy, along with other low-emission technologies, to help achieve deep and rapid decarbonization.
“At COP28, the world agreed nuclear power must be part of the transition to net zero,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi in the runup to COP29. “We know investment in nuclear power can lower grid costs and speed up the deployment of intermittent clean-energy sources like wind and solar. As the world moves from consensus to construction, the IAEA supports newcomer countries in establishing safe, secure, safeguarded and sustainable nuclear power programmes.”
COP29 also follows on the first-ever Nuclear Energy Summit, hosted in Brussels by the IAEA and the Government of Belgium in March 2024, where leaders from more than 30 countries reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions and meet development goals.