The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 29) is underway. Global leaders are gathering to continue global climate negotiations focused on delivering sustainable reductions to global emissions. 
 
World Nuclear Association will be representing the global industry in a series of high profile events and face to face discussions with negotiators and participants, including at our Net Zero Nuclear exhibition space in the Conference’s Blue Zone.   

Top of our agenda will be building further momentum to advance last year’s declaration by 25 member states to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050.   

Throughout the Association will underline the crucial role nuclear must play not only in global decarbonisation efforts, but also in pursuit of the UN’s sustainable development goals.    

Picking up this COP’s central theme of finance, the Association will point to the support for nuclear offered by 14 global banks, as well as recent announcements by the world’s largest tech companies to argue that a ”coalition of the ambitious” can drive rapid deployment of nuclear.   That coalition needs to include multilateral lending institutions like the World Bank.     

Speaking after opening a session on “Enabling the Future Financing of SMRs for the Energy Transition” at the UN’s SDG Pavilion,  Dr Sama Bilbao y León, Director General, World Nuclear Association said, “Over the past year we have heard encouraging, energizing updates from leaders of nation states that endorsed the Declaration to Triple at COP28. They all agreed that the most timely, cost-effective, and equitable route to net zero must include more nuclear energy. But that was just the beginning. We need to build more than 40 GW of new nuclear capacity per year every year from now to 2050, and we need to accelerate the development of SMRs. 
 
The global nuclear industry will be the one to deliver the expansion of nuclear projects, but we cannot do it alone. Tripling nuclear output will require the commitment and ingenuity of policy-makers, financial leaders, the nuclear industry, and many others, coming together to form a coalition of the ambitious. 
 
The time is now to step up and deliver."  

Find out more about the events featuring World Nuclear Association and hosted at the Net Zero Nuclear pavilion here. 

You can also follow the official livestream of COP 29 here.