 Good morning, everyone. My name is Brianna Lazarowitz with the Planning and Economic Studies section at the International Atomic Energy Agency as we begin week two of COP 28, moving a little bit from lofty pledges into thinking about how to implement them on the ground. We are here today to speak about two initiatives, the Net Zero World Initiative and Atmosphere Net Zero, which are doing just that. So with I will introduce Dr. Catherine Huff, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Thanks so much. I really appreciate being here. This is obviously extremely important to me. I don't need to tell you everything. It's all written right here, the IAEA statement and everyone, the tripling of nuclear by 2050. All of these things are really combined to say, you know, nuclear energy is critical to Net Zero. You know, it's no news to anyone that international analyses all agree that it's going to take an incredible amount of new global installed capacity to triple that nuclear energy capacity that we've committed to. It's something, you know, I know you've heard from Speck Kerry and DOE's Deputy Secretary Turk, who we're both here. Nuclear power has a really major role to play. It's clean, it's firm and as we grow electrification in our economies as we grow the use of nuclear for non-electric applications, decarbonizing this entire economy is going to require technology solutions and different end uses to be matured. It's going to require reactors of many different sizes, shapes, small, micro. They're going to have different roles to play, especially when we think about the equity and justice transition for communities that need a special kind of, you know, fit for purpose, you know, reactor type. Of course, the commercial liftoff reports indicate that we need to triple nuclear power in the U.S. It's going to require something like an additional, you know, 550 to 770 gigawatts of clean firm power and of that one to 200 will have to be nuclear. It's not just the U.S. It's everywhere. And I think IAEA's estimates agree with all of this accurate representation of inclusion and inclusion in nuclear energy and the energy system wide modeling efforts. It's really important for the member states to conduct energy systems analysis to figure out where it fits for them. I applaud IAEA's work on this front through this Adams for NetZero initiative because understanding where you need to go and where each of those different sizes of reactors will fit for your particular nation, for your community, for your needs, it's going to be essential for all the countries around the planet. We recognize that SMR's may be right size to replace aging, retiring or retire of fossil plants, but microreactors may be appropriate to replace diesel generation or directly and specifically support data centers that need, you know, 10 megawatts all the time every day 24-7. So communities and developers, I hope will take advantage of existing infrastructure rather than waiting for transmission to be built and as more of these coal plants retire, we're really eager to pursue these kinds of projects. And so I think the kind of energy analysis that's going to be needed, in particular in the context of these systems, should identify new options. You've all heard the ones I've listed today. I think identifying ways in which nuclear can flexibly support all the innovations that we're seeing across this cop is going to be really critical. You know, as you walk these halls, you'll see technologies perhaps that you've not seen before. I mean, there's a lot out there, whether it's, you know, perovskites or planting trees in new special ways, recapturing power from waste heat, all of these things will need to play nicely together and it's energy systems analysis that's required. So it'll take long-term investments, maintaining commitments to multiple projects, even if one project stumbles, which I think you all know is certainly the case in the U.S. We recognize that there are lots of companies and all of those companies have lots of projects and we should expect a few of them not to go quickly enough, but some of them must go as fast as possible. So I look forward to hearing a really engaging panel discussion this morning. And thank you for allowing me to give you a little bit of color on things you all already know. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. We'll move to the directors. So Director Paul Kearns of Argonne National Laboratory. Thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity to provide a few remarks. It's exciting to be here, much like Dr. Huff, I've got a great deal of enthusiasm and real passion on the topic and we're really pleased to be here to really recognize the great collaboration between the Net Zero World Initiative and the IAEA Adams for Net Zero Initiative, really fantastic in that way. You know, there are 10 national laboratories involved in the Net Zero World Initiative. We're fortunate to have Ron Benioff here, the executive director of what we call the Net Zero World Action Center. It's all about taking action and we do that in partnerships with many. We've got eight partner countries. We've got a fantastic set of partners across the U.S. government as well as also with philanthropic organizations in certainly industry. It's all about really leaning in and helping those countries understand how to effectively move in terms of their energy transition. We're providing really our world class tools and data, experts, facilities, and technical resources to really help accelerate clean energy transitions by informing them through that effort. We're focused on really three areas of technical collaboration and capacity building. They include teaming with in-country modelers and analysts to adopt modeling tools and data sets to really strengthen Net Zero Energy. Transition pathways and policies that evaluate their economic, social, technical, and energy security impacts. Second is partnering on clean energy technology cooperation. One thinks of the U.S. national laboratories. This is really an area of significant investment by Dr. Huff along with others from the Department of Energy to really ensure that we're moving forward with the appropriate technologies. Third is teaming with the U.S. government investment agencies, multilateral development banks, and private investors to really help countries develop bankable projects and to mobilize investment. So I'm really proud that Argonne's a part of the Net Zero World Initiative and it brings its expertise and capabilities in climate resilience, science, energy storage, life cycle analysis, and grid modernization to really help accelerate the transformation of the global energy system. I want to celebrate the partnership between Argonne National Laboratory and IAEA that's really been put to work here as well. Since 1976, it's really something to celebrate, I believe. We've held over 275 joint IAEA training courses have been organized by and presented at Argonne and over that time we've had over 6,390 individuals from some 158 countries participate in that training program. This long history of collaboration was leveraged. Really fortunate we had it because we quickly leveraged it to organize the annual joint near a Net Zero World Action Center and IAEA International Workshop and Energy Systems Wide Analysis of Net Zero Pathways. We met virtually in April of 2022. This workshop was the first Net Zero World Initiative event organized with our partner countries so please we could do this. Partners learned about energy systems modeling models, tools, and methodologies really available to help plan energy transition pathways and really understand their impact. In August of in addition in August of 2023 just recently we had two dozen participants from ministries and other organizations of 12 countries gathered in person at Argonne to discover and compare various decarbonization pathways and technology options using energy system-wide models. The workshop focused heavily on deepening the one-to-one collaboration and energy systems-wide modeling established through the initiative via hands-on joint modeling sessions and discussions with the partner countries. Participants also presented the challenges they were encountering and also their priorities and a concluding panel discussion included representatives from the World Bank and the Department of Energy's National Laboratories. So thank you again really for the opportunity to highlight a bit of the impactful work that we're doing with the IAEA to assist nations around the world in their efforts to secure a net zero future. I look forward really to our continued collaboration and today's discussion so thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up I'd like to invite Dr. Director Huang Wei, Division of Planning Information and Knowledge Management at the IAEA. Thank you. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Argonne for Climate Pavilion. As their agencies designate focal point for climate change and UNFGC, it's my great pleasure to welcome all of you to come to this special event. So I think the previous two two speaker already covered very well about what we can do and what we need to do and I just tried to give a very brief overview about what had happened here because I think that's the background we want to understand that the situation that the COP28 actually is a COP4 action and one of the main outcome will be that global stock take to be concluded by the end of this COP and this the main element is try to encourage the ambitious action from the parties and all stakeholders to take concrete action to make sure that 1.5 degree of the Paris agreement will be within the reach. So in addition to these traditional topics on the renewable and adaptation mitigation we see a very new development here that is a nuclear. Nuclear actually has taken the spotlight of this COP on the headline of the the media and we see from this joined announcement by the president Macron of France and the prime minister of a version the group and those of DG Grossi on this first ever nuclear energy summit in in next March talking about this nuclear's role in addressing climate change and facilitating the net zero transition and those to the DG himself's AIEA statement on nuclear power and from this group of the head of states talking about this supporting this tripling the capacity of nuclear by 2050 to a number of the declaration announcement happened in the past first part of this COP including yesterday in the nuclear summit which Dr. Hoff made a lot of intervention there a lot of announcement there very inspiration you know development there so and also another development is that you can see in this COP for the first time the COP 28 presidency designated one event to the nuclear autumn for net zero with joining organized by the host country and AIEA and supported by many countries and also has a record number of the pavilions that in a dedicated to the nuclear including here our neighbors on this floor and other places and in the green zone as well to a lot of nuclear events happen across the COP so this is really really encouraging and a great great momentum so we hope this we can take this a moment in the opportunity to really move ahead spearhead to take concrete action that today's event actually will do this I think so people are expecting to see what we can do what we are going to do to make sure we can do this in a collective manner so US DOE and launch this one in the Glasgow net zero word initiative and the agency launched the our initial autumn for net zero in the COP 27 so this create when look at the contents and objectives very very you know relevant of these two initiative so this create the opportunity for us to do some synergy together to make sure we can provide a service for countries to position the nuclear in their net zero transition so let's work together and looking forward to the concrete outcome of discussion for this panel thank you very much thank you now moving to the panel discussion section of this event I'd like to introduce on your right on repair of the IAEA Clarice Kim of Argonne National Laboratory and Alexander Dyachuk from the Institute for Economics and Forecasting of National Academy of Sciences Ukraine if you could all begin by some opening remarks about your work and experience with these two initiatives please Alexander thank you very much thank you for inviting me it's very appreciate so we started to work with net zero world in maybe in May of this year and together with you and and during the next three three months in June and August we worked with improving our modeling activities models that we developed as Ukraine models and together with Argonne thanks to Argonne National Labs PNL, BNL and NRL you can see that report which we prepared about transition energy sector of Ukraine till 2050 so and it's it was amazing work and we hope to continue to work with you but I just want to say about few words about nuclear in Ukraine from one side you know that in this scope Ukraine's also joined two initiatives to triple nuclear energy and Ukraine has a lot of nuclear currently and before the war we were producing around 50 percent of nuclear in Ukraine so we have a scientific potential we have some technology potential and so on and we want to Ukraine want to develop nuclear energy but from other side we also should thinking about security safety and you know that the Parisian nuclear power plants is the biggest nuclear in the Europe now occupied by Russia so it's very dangerous for us but again and nevertheless we Ukraine want to develop nuclear and in our modeling results we developed a lot of scenarios but key scenarios with low demand electricity demand with middle demand and high demand we show that to achieve net zero emission in energy sector we should develop nuclear and nuclear can contribute from from 35 to 50 percent of electricity demand so and again we had very amazing trainee you mentioned about this in Argonne national lab yeah and had chance to walk to his best modelers who walked in this is our area so together yeah and yeah maybe it's a general general words from my side if you have a question and time of course we'll discuss absolutely I think that leads really well Claire's if you could give an overview of the initiative your work thank you pleasure thank you yeah so great to be here today so thanks for this opportunity I'm Clarice Kim from Argonne national lab I'm the technical team manager for the net zero world initiative net zero world is an initiative of the US government to provide holistic support for decarbonization of energy systems we do this in partnership with the governments of eight of our partner countries as well as leading philanthropies international agencies and development banks and our goal really is to to again deliver holistic support through pathway net zero pathway modeling support of implementation actions and and finance mobilization so our initiative was launched in COP26 by the US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and and the the idea was to really leverage the expertise across the United States government and to the Department of Energy national labs to to really bring all of those skill sets to the forefront of the climate fight so since then we have been supporting 25 clean energy projects and policy measures we have helped countries mobilize capital in the form of loans and other measures for for clean energy projects we've partnered with local local partners on de-risking of of clean energy projects and investments and and of course we've worked very closely with our partners here you know in the agency to really deliver on capacity building as well so I think this is a really exciting moment for net zero world and for for all of us here at COP so thank you very much thanks thank you thank you so oh yeah from the international atomic energy agency clavis just mentioned capacity building and and this is really where where we come from the agency has been providing capacity building and energy planning to to its member states for several decades and we we we have a set of energy planning energy modeling tools for energy demand for energy supply to assess the financial viability of projects and so on and so we've been doing that for a for a great number of years and collaborating also with with with argon and and other partners also from academia but what we have seen in recent years is this demand from member states to help them find the pathways to to net zero a lot of countries are committing to to net zero but the the big question is how do we get there and how do we get there in a an affordable way in a way that is just and fair doesn't leave communities behind and so so this is a tough a really tough challenge it's a tough modeling exercise as well um so we're doing this and at the same time uh going to nuclear what we have what we're seeing is uh and dr huff mentioned this innovation also in nuclear a new generation of reactor technologies more modular reactors and so on that are addressing new new needs it's not just about electricity we will not get to net zero just by decarbonizing electricity we need to decarbonize the other sectors industry transport and so on and uh many of these reactors have the capacity to deliver low carbon heat or hydrogen but this is where the you know the the tricky point is many pathways many scenarios that are out there um do not necessarily represent nucleus capacity to provide that heat or hydrogen um we've analyzed um uh the hundreds and hundreds of scenarios that are in the sixth assessment report of ipcc and only a a fraction of them represent uh uh nucleus contribution to to low carbon heat or or hydrogen so there is uh uh you know questions out there is it because of the models is it because of the assumptions that are not not available is it um probably a combination of everything and and this is really where atoms from net zero comes from it's uh it's to help member states but it's also to help modelers uh understand uh the the the potential of nuclear how to model uh that and uh hopefully um find more affordable more realistic uh pathways to achieve net zero uh taking full advantage of uh uh nuclear nucleus contribution uh to to the to the challenge thank you thank you i think uh we've already spoken a little bit about what makes these two initiatives unique um so i'm interested to hear actually from all of you about some of the challenges or opportunities in implementing these initiatives alexander some of the challenges that you might experience uh yeah challenges for us for example for ukraine it's a first follow-up to the world of course it's an impact to the world but we hope to to and to have victory very soon and of course supporting by you and but for for us uh it's a challenge maybe it's a capacity right it's a capacity so we should expand the people who want to work with with with modeling to to to should understand uh a system uh a system approach and maybe challenge is to provide to government or stakeholders to to to show the why uh results and and why we have as these results or these results or and discuss with uh uh with about some some input data assumptions because we are speaking about next 30 years and based on a lot of of heavy to a lot of uncertainties right uh it's it's uh it's it's for us for for now it's it's very important to establish good cooperation with stakeholders and we have this because for example we prepare this report and we want to want to continue to work to improve in the modeling from one side for the other side it's improving the policy and measures how we can implement uh some policy measures to achieve net zero and source on the third side maybe it's uh we are using these results currently for develop national energy and climate plan which needed for your integration of ukraine integration to to your journey to to you so in and this plan and national energy and climate plan is a reliant with ukraine facility plan for which uh europe will support uh ukraine uh around 15 billion euros so it's it's very important so so we can say that for maybe it's some research report but this is a search report it's a basis for next government uh plans uh international cooperation your integration so so very important to to work um um together with you for us not only for for for us national labs but also for atomic energy agency we have a good cooperation with our nuclear company in ergo atom we work we did maybe a few else some reports about uh nuclear development but but now we see some renaissance of nuclear and so we we should include this this possibility to our vision and our modeling and technology development uh yeah so um i think one challenge uh in any kind of technical assistance program is the need to balance um so there's this need to to really take quick action right because of the urgency of of climate change um and we need to um to really focus on implementing these collaborative work plans um but that needs to be balanced with the need to slow down and really build and deepen um the local capacity to continue carrying those actions forward so um so sometimes that balance can be a challenge um in terms of the capacity building net zero world has already uh we have directly trained over 200 individuals many of them in partnership with with the agency it's been very valuable collaboration um we have uh peer learning opportunities and study tours we've just launched a women energy leaders program to increase gender parity in energy diplomacy um and then you know in addition if you're really trying to build sustained local capacity you you really need boots on the ground right you need long-term presence and and long-term programs um and so uh by leveraging our our partnerships you know such as with with with the agency um uh so so for example the agency has a long history of effectively organizing long-term capacity building programs they have the long entrusted relationships the knowledge of the institutions and they have the confidence of the member states right and so so by leveraging the the expertise of of the atomic energy agency we're really able to maximize the impact of our actions and and really focus on the actions and um and help build momentum through that that kind of sustained capacity building I totally agree with with Clarice that uh we need it's a continuous effort to to maintain knowledge and capacity in member states and so this is why you know we're we're we're working every year to provide uh support and and energy planning and so on so this is good uh I see a lot of opportunities in collaborating with the net zero world initiative um and and I would say ramping up this capacity building effort but also uh having this access to a network of modelers uh I really want to emphasize how modeling net zero transition is is tricky is challenging um and uh having having uh uh discussions also among modelers is going to be key to uh to finding robust um uh pathways to to to net zero um one challenge uh we see and I think uh Alexander uh referred to it is why are we doing this we're we're doing this effort to inform policymaking uh and inform with in the most um unbiased uh documented way possible um and so so this this is uh I mean the the one of the main objectives is to to provide information to to policymakers but um to to allow for the implementation the deployment we will also need to convince uh financial institutions um and as as regards uh regards nuclear here where we have a little bit of a problem because a lot of financial institutions are still reluctant to uh to finance nuclear um they are not necessarily recognizing uh it's well actually that's not true um the multinational development banks recognize that nuclear power is a low carbon technology that contributes to decarbonization but they exclude it because they don't think it's sustainable and there's been a lot of a lot of work in in recent years very recent years with the uh integration the discussion on the integration of nuclear and taxonomies in the in the EU but also in other countries so I think this is uh this is um a way to provide science based evidence that yes nuclear can help with the the transition and hopefully we will um collectively uh influence financial institutions so that they they start considering uh um financing of nuclear projects as part of the global effort to to to net zero I think picking up on that thread exactly um can you each speak a little bit about the ways that your experience working with these initiatives has helped reveal or for you to discover new ways that nuclear can complement other low carbon energy sources to achieve net zero chapter I had mentioned about that says uh regarding the our studies uh uh nuclear will play crucial role in decarbonization of energy sector of Ukraine in in economy in general in economy and it's only uh for Ukraine but for who's the world and for each country as for my mind uh uh decarbonization is electrification so we will need much more electricity so and not only wearable like solar and wind but also uh base load uh energy like nuclear for example uh so we see that lot of potential for the for Ukraine including another uh from another side uh also uh in Ukraine we had uh um around more 20 gigawatt of coal fissile coal power plants so and uh on COP26 Ukraine uh uh uh joined into a global initiative called fissile till 2035 and this uh this initiative still in implementing maybe slowly but but we have this target in our new energy strategy to 2050 serve and maybe places for uh uh of uh coal term of our plants will be good places for new small nuclear reactors for example uh we have a lot of uh Ukraine have a lot of uh and uh nuclear companies uh company uh Ukraine have a lot of agreement with different uh um first for us uh companies about uh developing uh small model reactors uh it's it's uh um maybe not maybe but it's also interesting for Ukraine so so if we want and we try to how calculate this this technologies in our studies but we need more information uh of course and we also send international energy atomic energy agency for excellent training in september where we had discussion not about only some technical parameters of of of nuclear technology but also about economy economic parameters and and this will be so interesting to continue so yeah again I think it's it's good uh technology for not only one technology but good technology for Ukraine to do achieving net zero yeah so um I actually wanted to um respond to Anri's observation about the development banks uh and and you know it's it's really not only the development banks but oftentimes it's the decision makers or even the the analysts who uh may not um have nuclear at the forefront of the of their minds but um in in our the joint modeling collaborations through net zero world um the our partner countries have really seen how uh nuclear can um play a role as as part of um a combination of low carbon uh technologies that can really contribute to not only emissions reduction but uh but also resilience um energy reliability and surety um supply chain issues and um something that's not not talked about um I think often enough um Dr. Huff mentioned earlier about um just transitions and and so the the potential of nuclear for job creation and efficient repurposing of coal uh infrastructure so uh you know all of these these benefits to nuclear that that may not have been um you know discussed enough uh have come up in in our peer learning um workshops and trainings as well as our our modeling work um and then as as as Sasha mentioned um in the in the case of Ukraine we've we've really seen through our modeling scenarios that um that um most of the generation mix has to come from nuclear and and renewables uh in order to uh to really meet the um decarbonization and resilience goals for example supporting like critical loads and critical infrastructures um and putting Ukraine on the the path toward energy independence uh so so this has been a you know in this world has been a very powerful kind of opportunity to uh to understand how all the the combination the full suite of low carbon technologies can interact and for the countries to learn from each other and and see examples like like Ukraine to understand this better. I totally agree with uh with uh what Clara said and uh I also want to to say how important this cop has been in terms of learning and events that were organized in this pavilion but also in other pavilions on on coal to nuclear on uh hard to abate sector decarbonization on hydrogen we haven't spoken a lot about hydrogen we will need not only a lot of clean electricity by 2050 but we will need a lot of clean hydrogen as well um how to tap uh on on the potential of both renewables and nuclear to to generate these vast amounts of uh vast amounts of uh of clean hydrogen uh this is also something that can uh can come from uh from um energy system modeling and we're we're glad to be able to work with colleagues from the us labs on on on all of these topics and one last thing we will also need to talk to the the industry the end user industry to understand better their needs their uh the the operating conditions of their uh processes to be able to model um uh in the most realistic way uh how uh nuclear or or are the sources of clean energy can can meet their needs to to to help decarbonize I just want to mention I I'm not uh relating with this uh net zero world activity but I want to mention today it's a net zero world uh supported uh uh and worked with technical university three technical university of Ukraine to teaching young people students about new technology about small moderates to work it's very it's very important because uh transition uh just and just transition and so on and achieving net zero mission we'll need new generation new new science new new knowledge and it's very important that Ukrainian students have a best best lecture about this and have a possibility and and no no new uh small model reactors in Ukraine now and us in private but we I hope we will be ready when this this this technology will come into Ukraine it's it's very important that that you support it also uh young generation young people and students this because we have uh actually uh events today uh bringing uh a young generation together the new generation of climate leaders as well yeah and uh we need that I mean they're they're really motivated uh but hopefully some of them will also go into uh work on uh modeling energy systems because we will need uh that as well thank you thank you we've heard a lot about the toolkit that exists today so before we close out I want to hear just briefly from all of you what's next if you have plans or or ambitions for these initiatives what what is the next step to to put this into action well you know there's a there's a lot of a lot of demand there are a lot of questions on on how how how will this work um I'm uh fortunate to be a a member of the um uh council of engineers for the energy transition which is a body that was set up under the UN secretary general so we're a group of uh engineers from all all areas of clean energy um and uh we we had our meetings this weekend on the margins of cop 28 and uh uh one of the co-chairs of the of the seat is professor sacks um and um and he's he said yesterday you know it's good to be able to assess technologies on an individual basis but what we need to to to understand is how do we bring them together how do we uh uh integrate all these technologies uh in a practical way to to to achieve achieve uh our net zero objectives and really this is through energy system modeling so net zero world initiative atoms for net zero these are all initiatives to to to to help with that um understanding and uh and development yeah um so uh you know I think what what I really want to say is that uh uh so countries around the world are are really grappling with um both the extreme urgency uh and complexity in in uh trying to achieve net zero right so um so the net zero world initiative really you know our goal is to continue helping countries to navigate these these complexities and um and provide them with with actionable insights um so that they can evaluate um trade-offs and uncertainties and be able to make robust decisions um and uh you know and and support uh identify opportunities for impactful action and support um those actions uh and and again you know our goal is to mobilize uh 10 billion dollars of clean energy and infrastructure investments by 2025 um so so those are some you know big next steps for us uh we want to continue leveraging our our strategic partnerships uh you know with with the agency and and with others um to uh to really uh you know deliver that kind of impact um and and really enable um uh countries that are committed to uh confronting climate change to uh to be able to achieve their goals yeah so from our side we of course we have a lot of ideas how to uh what we can do it but but in general it's maybe uh also you can join it to global metan uh initiative uh and we we want to work on this but when from maybe uh from uh from our side maybe not related with nuclear but if you want to phase out not only coal but oil and gas so we should replace something it's first of all it's electricity so again it's electrification and trying to the same we see the demand on uh clean or low carbon uh hydrogen in europe or some countries like january so again uh we are trying to modeling uh producing hydrogen from nuclear not only from from renewables uh and and a lot of another uh and as it is like sectoral more deeply um modeling or studies uh sectoral uh decarbonization transport and so on so and so it will be and again um capacity improved capacity our capacity will be also interesting for us thank you thank you so i mean some of the main themes we picked up on or capacity building for sure and collaboration which leads to that impactful action so thank you all for for your time and for the great discussion today and with that thank you thank you