 Hello my name is Aaron Cutan and I'm here at COP26 this week and it's been an absolutely incredible week where there's been loads of stuff going on in terms of climate change and the role that nuclear has to play in getting to a clean future. I'm really excited to be here because I'm with Director General Raphael Mariano Grossi and we're going to have a quick chat about his perspective on a few questions. So, DG, could you tell us something about yourself that many people might not know or that you might have an unusual hobby or embarrassing story anything like that? Well I don't know about embarrassing things but good things that perhaps people may not know is that I have eight children, eight, you know, seven daughters and a son, different ages but mostly young adults to the last one, the boy who is a teenager now so you know I think I have a pretty good idea of different ages and what's happening so I would like people to know that. Yeah, a nice big family that's very lovely to hear. And if you were thinking back to when you were in your mid-twenties as a young professional coming to somewhere like COP, would you expect there to be do you expect us to be where we are in terms of climate change now? No, I would say you know from my you know younger days I knew I wanted to be a diplomat. I'm a career diplomat, I work all my life in nuclear or non-proliferation, really large. So when I was you know when I had your age or even younger, climate change was not even an issue. So I would have could have never imagined that something like this could happen. So back then even if we were creating unknowingly perhaps the conditions of the problems we have now, we were really not aware. It was really not an issue. What was an issue those days was for example the oil crisis in the early 70s. I mean this is the time where I had your age. So there was it was more seen as a threat to our lifestyles. More you know more than the planet or the you know the environment being the issue. The issue was well there's no more petrol, what's going to happen, the prices are so high and that was my first realization of all these big forces at play around the world of energy if you want. Yeah, it's an incredibly complex problem, isn't it? It is. And getting to grips with it is half the challenge. I can really see that momentum is growing and it's youth day today and the IAEA is doing this youth pavilion shortly after this. But if you had some advice to give to yourself if you were attending something like this what would you tell yourself? Well you know it's it's difficult to imagine myself here at that age with the problems now but what I see is that and I like it is that you have so many possibilities here. You have all the expressions you have when you when you visit the stands for example you can really have a pretty good idea of what is going on in the world. So I would be under you know through the corridors and perhaps look at what attracts me more. And I mean just walking around myself this week I've been absolutely blown over by just the caliber of people around. You really want to make a difference but then also yeah just how much how much they're willing to listen which is really really helpful. Well one interesting thing there could be that you have like these two dimensions. You have the event like here you know have these people walking and as I was saying the stands and the events and then you have the the negotiation the diplomatic negotiation that is going in parallel. And one wonders to what extent there is an interconnection and I hope there is one. Yeah yeah and that's something I think as the young generation we're trying to build that bridge from the diplomatic side to the. How do you influence that. Exactly yeah yeah. So have you had any kind of failures over your career that have shaped your direction or your character and what have you taken from it. Not many but the ones that I had were quite you know important and made me think about what was I going to do next. And one was not so long ago because actually I only had to do with what I'm doing now because I was supposed to be a candidate at one moment and that didn't happen and it was postponed. So at that time I was very frustrated. I had this vision for the agency for the IEA or so enthusiastic about it and then all of a sudden for a number of reasons political reasons. I had to wait without really knowing whether I would still have a chance to do this. And in that time I had to decide whether I would be you know insisting doing something else. And I decided to pursue my dream and that and to try to feel the time that would be necessary to get to the next election. Yeah important things that would strengthen me strengthen my vision prepare me better for what I'm doing now. And I never regretted that. I was doubting whether you know insisting on something would be the right thing to do or whether you know I should reorient you know my life and be ambassador elsewhere you know and do something different. I said no I will wait for my chance to come. I convinced about this and it happened. So it's one thing that I think more or less fits the idea. I think there's a really nice lesson around there in terms of having patience and following through on that side of things. And do you feel hopeful for COP26 and what have been your reflections so far? Well I think that the conference is perhaps not going to be delivering what could be the best possible outcome but at the same time talking to the other leaders and I've been seeing many of them really. I see seriousness and I see that they all recognize the gravity of what is happening. Of course from that to seeing them walking the same kind of path it may be it may be different because at the same time we need to recognize that unfortunately we see lots of tension in the world now and these tensions come here and you can feel it among certain countries and that could perhaps affect I hope not would affect the best possible outcome. In any case these are processes were a little bit packing back to what I said now about my own life. One should persist when you are convinced about the necessity or the goodness of something I think you should never throw the towel. And it's honestly so inspiring to see you at COP26 for me personally and seeing the effort we really put in to have those diplomatic relations and get the word out and we almost consider ourselves as you are our leader and we're the troops on the ground trying to get the conversations going. Well in different times of our lives I think we all need I don't know if it's a leadership thing but the voices need to converge otherwise they are dispersed otherwise we may be right about something but if we do not find the most efficient way to to put the message across and hopefully influence and shape events it will never happen it will simply never happen you know talking to or about the cops when I started as DG many were saying well no the cops are not for nuclear there are people who are very critical they don't like you they may criticize you and it does happen it has happened but I believe that mostly and quite I think you know the vast majority of people appreciate that we come here that we explain not all may agree but they see the disposition to talk and to explain because at the end of the day I think there is a good story to be told about nuclear and there has been a lot of prejudice about it and one has to also have the humility to listen and to see when there is a legitimate concern or you know in some cases there may be a political agenda or whatever but one has to deal with that yeah yeah absolutely no other way and yeah I think something you said there around kind of collaboration is something that we embrace wholeheartedly and want to try and work with as many other groups as possible because together we will be so much stronger with that one message that one voice and and one of one of the messages that we've had is to have a clean and systemic sustainable and abundant low carbon future as part of our net zero needs nuclear campaign and do you support what what we're doing as part of the your campaign is so refreshing in this regard because these things are not for just decision makers or for people in high places we have to build you know like grassroots movements that are going to be pushing this in real life because at the end of the day may sound a bit cliche but it's true it's your problem more than mine uh 2050 2060 most probably I won't be around and you know it's going to be you your children if you choose to have them or your friends and and if you have a planet that has become unmanageable and sustainable or dependent on a number of factors to lead a normal life well then it would be a tremendous tragedy why because you saw that it could have been different you saw a time where we were still able to prevent the words and he didn't have what a tragedy yeah would that be so this I think is what um inspires me in any case and I suppose all more reason for you for your generation to call us to come together and to work together with the older generations because at the end of the day I mean it's it's it's for all of us yeah it's a very simple truth and there's so much experience that you will have that we would love to kind of tap into and well this is something that we need to do I was you know I was blessed in having a couple of uh leaders in my life that were generous and were passing what they mean uh to me um and I feel this like a moral responsibility and this is why I was mentioning my children because it's something that has to be not that you need to be a father or mother but um it's something that you feel you have to give to somebody because you went through you went through this and in this case I think uh the global warming is something that is man made we did it uh it was not bound to happen so it is up to us to change it so let's see how to go about that yeah yeah and nuclear of course is so important a key part of that yeah absolutely so I'll end on one quote that that really strikes me and I'd like to hear what your comments are on it so this is a quote yeah if if we want to go fast we go alone but if we want to go further we go together is that a Chinese one I'm not sure where it's from but it's do what do you think about that I think it's um it's a very interesting one the problem with it is that we don't have a we don't have a choice to go alone we are in this together whether it's fast or slow we are in this together and we gotta go fast in the right direction yeah that's really good I really love that thank you I enjoyed it yeah and well let's continue enjoying this yeah so uh see you around yeah thanks so much thank you thank you very much thanks for tuning in