Context: During the World Climate Action Summit of the 28th COP of UNFCCC, more than 20 countries from four continents launched the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy.
About Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy
- This Declaration recognises the key role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as increasing the share of nuclear energy is critical to reach the goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times.
- Signatory countries: USA, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, UAE, and UK.
- India is not a signatory to this Declaration as India has taken a principled position not to join alliances outside the COP Process.
- Countries party to the Declaration have committed to:
- Work together to advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity from 2020 by 2050.
- Take domestic actions to ensure nuclear power plants are operated responsibly and in line with highest standards of safety, sustainability, security and non-proliferation and responsible management of nuclear waste.
- Mobilise investments in nuclear power, including through innovative financing mechanisms.
- Encourage multilateral financial institutions to include nuclear energy in their energy lending policies.
- Support development and construction of nuclear reactors, such as small modular and other advanced reactors for power generation and wider industrial applications for decarbonization, such as hydrogen and synthetic fuel production.
- Promoting resilient supply chains, including of fuel, for safe and secure technologies used by nuclear power plants over their full life cycles.
- Extending the lifetimes of nuclear power plants while ensuring highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation.
- Supporting responsible nations to explore new civil nuclear deployment under highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation.
- Encourage complementary commitments from private sector, NGOs, development banks and financial institutions.
- Nuclear power currently provides about 10% of the world’s electricity, equivalent to about a quarter of all low-carbon electricity. World's total operational nuclear energy capacity stands at 370 GW which is installed in 31 countries.
Importance of nuclear power for climate change
- Nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases. According to a recent study by IAEA, nuclear power generation has avoided nearly 70 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in the last 50 years.
- Contributes to monitoring climate change and tackling its impacts.
- Second largest source of clean dispatchable baseload power which cannot be provided other renewable energy sources like Solar and Wind power.
- They can provide continuous baseload power unlike other renewable sources like Solar and Wind Power which are inherently intermittent.
- Currently global installed nuclear energy/power capacity stands at about 370 GW, providing about 10% of world's total electricity.
- New nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors occupy a small land footprint and can be sited where needed.
- Nuclear power can partner with renewable energy sources and have flexibilities that support decarbonisation beyond the power sector, including hard-to-abate sectors.
- IAEA has been supporting Member States to include nuclear power in their national energy planning in a sustainable way and has launched 'Atoms4NetZero' initiative.
Atoms4NetZero Initiative
- Atoms4Zero is an initiative of IAEA that supports efforts by member states to harness the power of nuclear energy in the transition to net-zero.
- It provides Member States and stakeholders including industry, financial institutions and international organisations with technical expertise and scientific evidence on the potential of nuclear energy to decarbonize electricity production and hard-to-abate sectors such as industry and transport.
India's Nuclear Energy Capacity
- India currently has 6780 MW of installed nuclear capacity and is constructing 8 new reactors, which will add 6800 MW of nuclear capacity. This will take total installed nuclear capacity in India to about 13600 MW.
- India plans to grow its installed nuclear energy capacity to about 22 GW by 2032, which itself will lead to tripling of nuclear capacity.
- However, according to estimates for India to reach its goal of net-zero by 2070, India will need to expand its nuclear power capacity by 100 times.
- According to experts joining this initiative was critical for India as:
- India is anyway planning to triple its installed nuclear power capacity by 2032.
- Tripling nuclear energy capacity is essential for reaching the target of net-zero by 2070.
- Being a part of this declaration would have allowed India to be part of nuclear supply chains and bolstered its claims for a permanent seat of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).