Some 20 countries, including 11 from the European Union (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden), as well as the United States, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates, pledged to work together to “advance a global aspirational goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity by 2050” on Saturday 2 December, on the sidelines of the COP28 conference in Dubai (see other news).
These countries promise to operate nuclear power plants “in line with the highest standards of safety, sustainability, security, and non-proliferation” and to manage fuel waste responsibly. They promote the construction of “small modular reactors” and other advanced reactors for electricity production, as well as broader industrial applications for decarbonisation, such as the production of hydrogen or synthetic fuels.
The signatories of the declaration also invite the World Bank, international financial institutions and regional development banks to “encourage the inclusion of nuclear energy in their organizations’ energy lending policies” and, where appropriate, to “actively support nuclear power when they have such a mandate”.
See the declaration on the tripling of nuclear energy production: https://aeur.eu/f/9xd (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)