By Sheriffah Noor Khamseah Al-Idid Dato Syed Ahmad Idid

Conference of Parties (COP) – A Common and Urgent Mission to Curb Climate Change

World leaders will be gathering in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Nov 30 to Dec 12, 2023, on a common and urgent mission to curb climate change, striving to prevent it from further escalating into a climate emergency.

Signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – an international environmental treaty addressing climate change – will convene to discuss the climate crisis on a global level.

UN Climate Change Conference is the official name for climate Conferences of the Parties (COP).

In addition to decision makers including world leaders and politicians, experts and other relevant groups are expected to share experience and insights, and offer recommendations and action plans towards achieving the important objective to keep global warming below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – as per the Paris Agreement which was decided at COP21.

The UAE has been endorsed / accorded the honour to host COP28 in EXPO City, Dubai.

Under the directive of President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Court, had appointed Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, a member of the UAE Federal Cabinet, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and the UAE’s special envoy for climate change, as President-Designate for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28).

Shamma Al Mazrui, UAE Minister of State for Youth Affairs, and Razan Al Mubarak, President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), will join Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber’s COP28 UAE team as the Youth Climate Champion and UN Climate Change High-Level Champion, respectively.

The UAE – Host of COP28 –Walking the Talk

The hosting of COP28 by the UAE comes at a crucial moment when the nation was granted in November 2023 the operating licence for its fourth and final nuclear reactor at its Barakah Nuclear Power Plant by the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR). The licence, with a duration of 60 years, authorises the Nawah Energy Company to commission and operate the unit.

In February 2020, March 2021, and June 2022, FANR issued the operating licences for Unit 1, Unit 2, and Unit 3, respectively.

The granting of the licence for the fourth plant marked a historic moment for the UAE, where it realised its vision that started 15 years ago in developing the-first-in-the-region peaceful nuclear energy programme.

Hamad Al Kaabi, UAE’s Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Management of FANR, had announced that the UAE Nuclear Programme will play a key role in providing 25 per cent of clean energy, hence supporting the UAE Government’s efforts to achieve its 2050 net zero goals.

This testifies that the UAE, as Host of COP28, is walking the talk on addressing climate change.

In recognition that a varied and large number of stakeholders are key in contributing to the success of COP28, in terms of planning, execution, implementation and financing of key action plans, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber has visited and conducted meetings and discussions with world leaders, industry, financial institutions, and others.

President COP28 calls on key stakeholders to disrupt business as usual

The English daily, Gulf Today, had reported that Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber has called on governments, industry, and all stakeholders to “disrupt business as usual” and take decisive action to tackle the climate crisis in the world’s pursuit to achieve game-changing results.

Massive global investments to reduce emissions and boost resilience required

Green Future had reported that massive global investments to reduce emissions and boost resilience are required, and that a major shift is needed to harness public and, especially, private financing, with the urgency for both the public and private sectors to finance all components of the energy transition, including both the scaling of clean energy and the managed phaseout of fossil fuels on an accelerated time frame.

Among the key prescriptions for success are the use of innovative financing instruments to scale up private investment in emerging and developing economies.

Trillions of dollars needed to meet climate target

Gulf Today spotlighted that President COP28 Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber had drawn attention to the urgent need to mobilise trillions, not billions, of dollars if the world is to reach our climate, biodiversity and SDG targets.

And, thus, in tandem with this, Dr Sultan had made a visit to the United Kingdom to advance innovative climate finance to deliver climate action and a just energy transition and participated in high-level discussions on climate finance with United States President Joe Biden and King Charles III, alongside leading investors and philanthropists.

Addressing climate finance cornerstone of COP28 Action Agenda

The English daily, Khaleej Times, had reported that during a virtual meeting, attended by presidents of nine of the world’s biggest development banks, including the World Bank, and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the COP28 President had called on multilateral development banks (MDBs) to show “more ambition” and work faster to address climate finance and development challenges.

Role of Nuclear Power in Climate Change

Nuclear energy as part of an urgent and key solution to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change has gained traction among world leaders.

The following events are testimony to this development which is expected to culminate at COP28 with the inevitable role of nuclear power sealed and a landmark climate deal announced.

78th Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly – 8 November 2023

In his statement to the 78th Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Nov 8, 2023, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted that presently more than 400 nuclear power reactors operating in more than 30 countries supply over 10 per cent of the world’s electricity, and more than a quarter of all low-carbon electricity. Without nuclear power, global CO2 emissions would be considerably higher.

As a case in point, the IAEA reports that nuclear power has avoided around 70 Gt CO2 in the last five decades, avoided more than 1 Gt CO2 every year in the current decade and is still globally the second source of low-carbon power behind hydropower.

Additionally, more than 50 reactors are currently under construction and many countries already operating nuclear power programmes are extending them.

COP27, Egypt – 2022

At COP27 in 2022 in Egypt, IAEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol had set the tone for the event by declaring at its outset that “nuclear power is making a comeback – and in a strong fashion”.

Dr Birol dovetailed that nuclear power capacity needs to double by 2050 if net-zero goals are to be achieved and he highlighted that to live up to its potential, the nuclear industry must do better to deliver its projects on time and on budget.

WNA’s World Nuclear Symposium 23, London, UK – September 2023

During the World Nuclear Symposium 23, organised by the World Nuclear Association (WNA) in London in September 2023, the Net Zero Nuclear initiative was launched by the WNA and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) with the support of the Atoms4NetZero, an initiative of the IAEA, ahead of COP28 in Dubai, UAE.

World Nuclear News (WNN) had reported that recent data modelling has shown that global nuclear capacity should at least triple by 2050 to achieve climate targets while still ensuring energy security, and thus it is within this context that Net Zero Nuclear called for an unprecedented collaboration between key stakeholders including government, industry leaders and civil society to achieve this urgent need.

International Climate Change Conference, Vienna, Austria – October 2023
And a year later, in October 2023, during the IAEA 2nd International Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power Conference in Vienna, Dr Birol had outlined three crucial things that need to be done for nuclear energy to contribute to net-zero goals: continue the construction of large nuclear power plants, life extension of the existing nuclear power plants as this is a very cheap source of energy, and to support and invest in innovation including SMRs technologies.

COP28 & Role of Nuclear Power

Recognising the critical role of nuclear power in achieving net-zero goals, a number of meetings and events have been organised at COP28 to provide strategic platforms for discussions and decisions on this key and urgent matter.

Ministerial event at COP28 to announce the IAEA Statement on Nuclear Power

The COP28 Presidency and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will co-host this ministerial event at COP28 to announce the IAEA Statement on Nuclear Power, which reflects nuclear’s critical role in the net-zero transition and is supported by +50 nuclear operating and newcomer countries, and discuss the way forward in paving the way to count with nuclear in the pathway to net zero.

Net-Zero Nuclear to reiterate call for tripling installed nuclear capacity by 2050

The initiative launched at the World Nuclear Symposium 23 jointly by WNA and ENEC will reiterate its call for greater cooperation from all stakeholders to triple installed nuclear capacity by 2030.

Pledge to push to triple amount of installed nuclear capacity and call on World Bank and other financial institutions to include nuclear in their lending policies

Bloomberg News had reported on Nov 15, 2023, that the United States will lead a push at the COP28 Summit to triple the amount of installed nuclear capacity globally by 2050, making a major turnaround for the controversial technology at the climate negotiations.

The declaration will call on the World Bank and other international financial institutions to include nuclear in their lending policies according to a document seen by Bloomberg News.

The United States will likely be joined by the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Finland and South Korea in the pledge to be signed on Dec 1, 2023, in Dubai, according to people familiar with the matter.

Proposed launch of an International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure (IBNI)

Recognising the present inadequate funds available to fund nuclear power and other related infrastructures, an international steering group had reviewed the present status and will be launching a new International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure (IBNI) to offer the much-needed additional funds to support nuclear power aimed at contributing to achieving net-zero goals.

Stakeholders call to multilateral and international banks to consider including nuclear in their financing policies

A number of stakeholders, including President COP28, had urged multilateral development banks (MDBs) and the IMF to accelerate climate finance.

Stakeholders are calling for MDBs to include nuclear as part of the portfolio in ESG financing to support climate financing.

My appeal to the multilateral development banks

As world leaders gather in unison to call for the MDBs to include nuclear in their financing portfolio under ESG, I would like to appeal to the MDBs to please consider including nuclear not only as a key imperative of ESG but also to take into consideration the strategic and significant contribution of nuclear for development in particular for developing countries.

Arising from his concern about the escalating nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union or ‘Atoms for War’, US President Dwight Eisenhower had delivered his Atoms for Peace Speech at the UN General Assembly on Dec 8, 1953, which had set the direction to shift nuclear application for peaceful uses through cooperation and sharing of information and knowledge.

This speech inspired the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957 to promote the application of nuclear science and technology “for the benefit of all mankind”.

During a visit to Malaysia in 2015, Yukiya Amano, then Director-General of the IAEA, in a speech at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC), had dovetailed that “our mandate has been summarised as ‘Atoms for Peace’, in reference to the speech by President Eisenhower.

Amano said: “I believe we could now expand that to ‘Atoms for Peace and Development’”.

This is timely as countries receiving support from the IAEA and other countries in nuclear applications and nuclear energy have experienced and witnessed significant development in their countries. An example is South Korea.

It is a historic milestone for Malaysia and the world that the famous slogan ‘Atoms for Peace’ by US President Eisenhower was expanded to ‘Atoms for Peace and Development’ by Amano during his visit to Malaysia.

Amano has thus underlined the IAEA’s role in global development by changing the agency’s official motto into ‘Atoms for Peace and Development’.

Additionally, the IAEA helps countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in energy, food and agriculture, industry, water management and health.

Thus, it is within this context that I would like to appeal to the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to consider including nuclear into the MDBs financing portfolio not only for ESG objectives but also equally important to support the development as well as SDGs of countries as espoused by Amano that nuclear is not only for peace but also for development.

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Sheriffah Noor Khamseah Al-Idid Dato Syed Ahmad Idid is Innovation & Nuclear Advocate alumna of the Imperial College, University of London, United Kingdom, and Member of Women in Nuclear Global (WiN Global).