China and France today reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement and called for worldwide action on combating climate change and halting the loss of biodiversity.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday announced the country had begun the process to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change by submitting a formal notification to the United Nations. The withdrawal will take effect one year from delivery of the notification.

Nuclear energy in Asia is meeting the growing demand for electricity, whilst helping to tackle air pollution and climate change, according to a new report by World Nuclear Association. The World Nuclear Performance Report 2019 Asia Edition shows that last year nuclear generation in the region increased by 12% and avoided the emission of over 500 million tonnes of CO2 that would have otherwise been produced by coal-fired plants.

Support by the Belgian public for keeping the country's nuclear power plants in operation beyond 2025 has risen to 46% of those surveyed, up from 30% recorded in a 2017 poll. The percentage of respondents who believe the share of nuclear power in Belgium's electricity mix should be reduced has fallen to 59% from 75% in 2017. Trade body Forum Nucléaire says the increase in support shown by the 18-month barometer survey is "remarkable".

Nuclear power can help nations attain energy security, diversity and decarbonisation, and the USA is "ready and willing" to offer its technology to achieve this, US Energy Secretary Rick Perry told a US-EU High-Level Industrial Forum this week.

The world must learn to value nuclear energy for its energy security and reliability attributes, but most of all for its contribution to reducing carbon emissions before it is too late, the International Energy Agency's Fatih Birol has told a US-EU high-level forum.
 

Public perception of nuclear power in mitigating climate change does not depend exclusively on education, but is also determined to a large extent by each individual's world view, Jessica Lovering of the Breakthrough Institute said last week at the International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power, held by the International Atomic Energy Agency at its headquarters in Vienna.

A policy and market environment that unlocks the mitigation potential of nuclear power will enable countries to adopt more ambitious targets in their Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement, a paper prepared by Hal Turton, an energy economist in the Department of Nuclear Energy at the International Atomic Energy Agency shows. The paper, Nuclear Power and Climate Change: Scenario Perspectives to 2050, was presented last week at the Vienna-based agency's first international conference on climate change and the role of nuclear power.

The UK government has today set out how it will go "further and faster" to tackle climate change - four months after the country became the first major economy to legislate for net-zero emissions by 2050. It has also introduced its new Environment Bill to Parliament, which it says signals "a historic step change in the way we protect and enhance our precious natural environment".

Half of the carbon emissions in the world today were produced in the last 30 years and it is up to governments and industry to cooperate as never before to ensure the next three decades lead to a clean energy future. This was the consensus of a debate on multilateral partnerships that took place yesterday at the International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power at the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters in Vienna.

Market forces, rather than reports on climate change, will force renewable energy developers to overcome their ideological aversion to sharing a platform with the nuclear power industry, delegates at the IAEA's International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power heard yesterday. 

Nuclear power is "irreplaceable" and international cooperation in the technology "indispensible" in reducing global CO2 emissions, China National Nuclear Corporation President Jun Gu told delegates at the International Atomic Energy Agency's International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power yesterday in Vienna. Climate change may in fact be an "opportunity to create a new era for nuclear energy", he said, and CNNC is "willing to work with all countries" to bring about a clean energy transition and mitigate climate change.