Director General’s Statement to the Sixty-Ninth Common Session of the IAEA General Conference

(As ready for supply)

Mr President, Excellencies, women and gents,

This General Conference is going down at a pivotal second. These are extraordinarily difficult occasions. Acts of terrorism, a number of army conflicts, and the erosion of nuclear norms are all taking place towards a rising hole between poverty and prosperity.

At occasions like these, worldwide organizations have two selections: Continue enterprise as ordinary or rise to fulfill the problem.

Today I’ll inform you how the IAEA has been responding by its distinctive mandate, one which spans all the best way from lowering the danger of nuclear weapons proliferation – and in the end due to this fact additionally the danger of nuclear warfare – to utilizing nuclear science and know-how to assist feed households, gentle cities and care for youngsters with most cancers.

Let me start on the sharp finish.

When the IAEA confirms the peaceable use of a State’s nuclear materials, confidence over nuclear actions is established. History exhibits that when confidence disappears, worldwide peace and safety are in danger. Remember what occurred in Iraq, in Syria and most just lately, and dramatically, in Iran.

In June, after the assaults on Iranian nuclear amenities, we needed to withdraw our inspectors.

For the previous weeks, on this distinctive state of affairs, now we have labored with Iran on sensible steps geared toward resuming the complete implementation of safeguards in Iran.

Last week in Cairo, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran Dr Abbas Araghchi and I signed an settlement that gives a transparent understanding of the procedures for inspection, notifications, and implementation. While considering Iran’s considerations, it’s nonetheless in keeping with the related provisions of Iran’s Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement with this Agency.

It is now time to implement the settlement. I’m assured {that a} return of IAEA inspectors and the resumption of safeguards implementation in Iran would function an excellent signal that agreements and understandings are potential and that nothing replaces dialogue within the pursuit of sturdy, lasting options to worldwide challenges.

In the previous, an extended shadow of doubt has additionally been forged over the Syrian Arab Republic’s nuclear programme. I consider we now have an opportunity to shine a light-weight on the matter. Earlier this 12 months, I met Syrian President Mr Ahmed Al-Sharaa and senior ministers, they usually agreed to cooperate with full transparency. Since then, now we have undertaken a technique of verification, which as soon as full, I’m assured will result in a long-lasting decision of Syria’s previous nuclear actions, opening the best way to its full reintegration into the worldwide neighborhood.

Reflecting on these developments, I’ve mentioned to the UN Security Council that the worldwide nuclear non-proliferation regime is below important pressure and that we have to defend it.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues its nuclear weapons programme in contravention of a number of UN Security Council resolutions, serving as a reminder of the implications of pink traces being crossed.

But challenges are coming from new quarters too. Even inside some nations in good standing with their obligations below the NPT, there at the moment are open discussions about whether or not or to not purchase nuclear weapons. Think for a minute a few world the place as an alternative of some, we’d have 20 or 25 nations armed with nuclear weapons.

Your assist of the non-proliferation regime, the NPT and the IAEA, is essential. I urge Member States to recommit to a system that has been one of the vital necessary foundations for worldwide peace, even throughout the tensest many years of our technology. It is completely indispensable now, when the world once more is so deeply divided.

Mr President,

In February 2022 warfare returned to Europe and for the primary time threatened a serious nuclear energy programme. The risk of a nuclear accident at Europe’s largest Nuclear Power Plant loomed. The IAEA was not simply going to take notes from the sidelines.

Three years in the past, I led a devoted workforce of Agency workers throughout the frontlines below gunfire, and we deployed the primary ISAMZ mission to the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.

Since then, the IAEA has despatched greater than 200 missions involving practically 200 workers to nuclear energy vegetation in Ukraine. We are current on the bottom in any respect the websites.

Our persons are actively supporting operators in taking care of the Seven Pillars of nuclear security and safety and the Five Principles for shielding the Zaporizhzhya NPP, and we’re maintaining the worldwide neighborhood up to date on the state of affairs at every web site.

At Zaporizhzhya NPP, army motion nonetheless endangers the location, and the reactors stay in chilly shutdown. But energy continues to be required for security and water for cooling – each are severely compromised.

At Chornobyl and on the three working Nuclear Power Plants in Ukraine –  Rivne NPP, South Ukraine NPP, Khmelnytsky NPP – our groups have reported a big improve in army actions in latest weeks.

This February, a drone assault broken the Chornobyl web site’s New Safe Confinement (NSC) dome. I once more met President Zelenskyy, simply a few months in the past in Rome, this time to agree a complete framework of assist, together with with regard to the broken dome. Soon I’ll return to the Russian Federation to proceed our indispensable dialogue on nuclear security.

In one other space of significance for nuclear security, the IAEA has confirmed that the tritium concentrations in all batches of ALPS-treated water which have been discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station up to now have been far beneath operational limits and absolutely in keeping with worldwide security requirements – and this, below the neutral eye of the IAEA and various States which have been invited to take part on this distinctive train of transparency. Member States have acknowledged the IAEA’s complete unbiased worldwide monitoring of the discharge course of and our assortment and evaluation of samples, appreciating the readability it brings to this delicate matter.

Mr President,  

For many years, the world has been lamenting air pollution and local weather change, however for a few years it was silent about one of many confirmed, scalable options.

Even the IAEA and lots of the nations that had made monumental progress in direction of their local weather objectives due to nuclear energy have been timid about speaking about its advantages and glorious security document.

My first journey as DG was to the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid. I used to be the primary head of the IAEA to attend a COP assembly. I felt like a lonely voice. But slowly, the info have been chipping away at misplaced ideology after which three years in the past the abrupt prioritization of power safety put nuclear energy squarely again on the agenda in lots of nations. I’ve described this as a “return to realism” and it’s mirrored within the knowledge. By 2050, nuclear power capability is now anticipated to extend as a lot as two and a half occasions. 

Everywhere I’m going, persons are speaking about wanting nuclear power. In Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia curiosity is rising.

How do you financial a nuclear energy plant? What are the mandatory authorized devices and regulatory establishments? When will Small Modular Reactors come available on the market?

These are among the questions we discipline on daily basis, not solely as a result of the IAEA is the centre of worldwide nuclear, but additionally as a result of constructing nuclear capability isn’t so simple as flipping a light-weight change.

Here are the highest three keys to unlocking international nuclear capability: Newcomer nations require assist; regulation should adapt; and financing must be made potential. In all three areas the IAEA is working full steam forward.

Today, practically 40 nations are at completely different phases of growth, from finishing up preliminary research to setting up their first vegetation. More than 20 others are exploring nuclear as a part of their future power combine. The IAEA’s Milestones Approach stays the gold customary relating to growing a brand new nuclear programme.

In the previous 12 months, now we have carried out follow-up Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review missions within the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Next 12 months we’re planning extra missions as newcomers, together with Bangladesh and Türkiye, look to fee their first nuclear energy reactors.

We additionally held our first SMR Schools in Kenya, Thailand and Argentina, benefitting their respective areas by coaching nationwide authorities, regulators and stakeholders on SMR know-how, regulation and engagement.

If SMRs are to be deployed globally, regulators might want to modernize, adapting their approaches to develop into sooner with out compromising security. Our Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative, or NHSI, has been forward of the curve, bringing collectively stakeholders to seek out methods of harmonizing approaches to regulation and design.

We additionally proceed to assist non-power purposes of nuclear power, from hydrogen manufacturing to industrial warmth, and seawater desalination to marine propulsion. Marine-based SMRs specifically are rising as wanted options for offshore platforms, distant coastal communities and business delivery. The Agency is about to ramp up its assist on this space by my new initiative, ATLAS, or Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea.

Financing additionally wants a brand new strategy, not solely in developed nations the place now we have strongly supported advances just like the EU taxonomy.

Even extra necessary to the IAEA’s mission is ensuring that growing nations usually are not left behind. For many months I’ve been chatting with growth banks and worldwide monetary establishments about how the individuals and governments we – they usually – serve need nuclear energy. Most of the nations actively contemplating including nuclear to their power combine are from the growing world, many from Africa.

I’m grateful the World Bank now shares our imaginative and prescient, agreeing it was excessive time to finish the unjustified, ideologically pushed limitation on supporting the financing of latest nuclear energy.

The block on growing nations with the ability to select their very own path is off. The block on making a extra numerous monetary market and thereby additionally a extra worldwide nuclear sector is off. I’m assured that by the point we meet subsequent 12 months, different growth banks and worldwide monetary establishments could have adopted the World Bank’s lead.

This 12 months the IAEA will probably be current on the subsequent UN Climate Change Conference, COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and fascinating once more with the G20 below South Africa’s presidency.

But we’re not solely targeted on the worldwide stage. Global nuclear depends upon native acceptance — social license, in actuality, is the primary license to function.

Recently, our first International Conference on Stakeholder Engagement for Nuclear Power Programmes introduced collectively practically 900 members, together with mayors from communities that host nuclear websites. No one is best positioned to speak about what it means to have a nuclear energy plant or associated facility of their again yard.

Mr President,

Cancer is an acute disaster in lots of growing nations. It is a disaster for the kid whose kidneys are needlessly failing. It is a disaster for the grieving mother and father. It is a disaster for the nurses and docs who can not diagnose the issue as a result of they don’t have a radiotherapy machine. It is a disaster for the communities during which very in poor health persons are mendacity motionless in hospitals slightly than instructing college students, working firms, and harvesting fields. Finally, most cancers is a disaster for the nations whose progress is being pushed again by lives minimize brief, well being methods dropped at the brink and economies undermined.

When I arrived as your Director General I used to be satisfied not sufficient was being performed and that the IAEA might be the catalyst for doing extra. Launching our Rays of Hope initiative three years in the past has confirmed that proper, on each counts. It has confirmed the IAEA generally is a catalyst for actual, substantial progress in most cancers care. Through Rays of Hope, concrete actions have been taken in 40 nations: hospitals have been constructed, radiotherapy machines procured, physicists skilled, and lives saved

Many individuals have labored with us, from the heads of state and ministers whose stewardship made us companions, to the neighborhood leaders, donors, firm executives, docs and sufferers making their imaginative and prescient a actuality.

These previous three years have additionally confirmed that extra nonetheless must be performed. So we’ll proceed, energized by the information that we will and should do extra. 

Mr President,

Our planet is our stunning widespread residence, and nuclear science and know-how are extremely efficient instruments we will use within the service of our home and the individuals who stay there.

With a household of 8 billion, we can not preserve utilizing a teaspoon to sow every seed in our backyard, a cup to water it, and an previous scarecrow to shoo away the pests.  In a world of abundance, 700 million individuals shouldn’t should go to mattress hungry each evening.

Atoms4Food gives tailored options that increase meals safety, assist meals security and vitamin, and cut back agriculture’s pressure on the surroundings. This joint initiative between the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the usage of irradiation to create hardier forms of crops like bananas, sorghum, rice and casava. It helps communities higher handle their treasured water provides through the use of strategies like isotope hydrology. And it’s serving to farmers use the environmentally pleasant Sterile Insect Technique to battle off pests just like the fruit fly and New World Screwworm.

Water is life and this 12 months’s Scientific Forum, which takes place tomorrow and Wednesday, has as its theme Atoms for Water. It will showcase the various methods nuclear science and know-how assist the administration of our world’s water methods.  

On Wednesday, is the inauguration of our new IAEA Visitor Centre in Seibersdorf, the place the modernization of our laboratories is full and labs are anticipated to be absolutely operational by year-end. At the Visitor Centre’s one can find extremely participating interactive museum-quality shows telling the story of the Agency’s work and serving as a cornerstone of our revamped and upgraded outreach efforts.

You will be capable of find out about all our initiatives, together with NUTEC Plastics, which I launched in 2020.

Microplastics are in every single place. We can not escape them – we breath them in, we eat them, we swim in them and so do the creatures with whom we share our widespread residence. For a supply of air pollution so ubiquitous, we all know far too little about how microplastics journey by our ecosystems and what impression they’re having. NUTEC Plastics takes a two-pronged strategy to coping with plastic air pollution. One prong helps 100 Member States eager to make use of know-how like infra-red spectroscopy to watch and characterize microplastic marine air pollution, from coastal Africa to the Galapagos Islands. The second, helps 52 Member States, together with Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, who wish to use radiation-assisted know-how to upcycle plastic waste into beneficial merchandise like development materials.  

Ladies and gents,

I don’t suppose any of us take without any consideration anymore that we will meet on this room and speak about combating plastic air pollution, or any of the various different points we will probably be discussing this week. Not one in all us needs to return the deafening silence of the COVID lockdowns.

That’s why we launched Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action, or ZODIAC, within the midst of the final pandemic, whilst we have been delivering the largest emergency response programme within the Agency’s historical past.

Since then, ZODIAC has improved the preparedness of nations world wide. One hundred and twenty-nine nationwide laboratories have joined the ZODIAC community, and 151 Member States have designated a nationwide coordinator. More and extra probably devastating pathogens are being characterised, and the iVetNet platform now tracks knowledge from greater than 2 400 establishments.

We are wanting immediately into the ugly face of the zoonotic menace and saying: “Not again.”   

The future is just too thrilling to overlook.

In the historical past of humankind, now we have by no means earlier than had the possibility to know and accomplish that a lot.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are giving every of us the possibility to create the long run we would like. Never earlier than have curiosity and creativeness had such highly effective instruments at their disposal.

But these instruments require numerous power and the know-how firms constructing one knowledge centre after one other realize it. Not per week appears to go by with out a tech government saying a nuclear power deal.

AI and nuclear power have a two-way relationship – nuclear can energy AI knowledge centres and AI can assist enhance the best way nuclear operates, and so in December, the IAEA will deliver collectively the nuclear sector and the know-how sector for the primary International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Energy.  I encourage you to affix us in what I’m certain will probably be a really thrilling assembly of know-how minds.

Another motive to be excited in regards to the future is that fusion power is now getting into the subsequent leg of its lengthy journey. Private capital and public programmes are accelerating progress in direction of demonstration vegetation, and I’m certain that almost all of us on this room will probably be alive to see the primary business fusion power plant ship its first pulse of electrical energy to the grid.

The IAEA is enjoying its personal half in making it occur. The second World Fusion Energy Group assembly to be held in Chengdu subsequent month alongside the thirtieth IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, will advance work on regulatory frameworks, commercialization pathways and public engagement.

Mr President,

Every problem is a chance. Peace isn’t merely the absence of battle. It is dynamic, hopeful striving that I see in what we do all world wide, along with our Member States.

Thank you to the Republic of Austria for being such collaborative hosts of our headquarters and Seibersdorf laboratories and to the Principality of Monaco for supporting our Marine Environmental Laboratories.

At the Secretariat, we reached parity amongst women and men working within the Professional and better classes in December 2024. I introduced the goal of 2025 even earlier than taking workplace as Director General in 2019, again when ladies made up about 30 per cent of these roles.  Meanwhile, our devoted programmes to widen the workforce of the worldwide nuclear sector proceed, together with the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme and the Lise Meitner Programme. 

Now allow us to start the week. I stay up for assembly with you and listening to your priorities. Let’s benefit from our GC, in order that, on the finish of the week, we return to the completely different rooms of our shared international residence with a renewed sense of goal and enthusiasm.