 Welcome to the IAEA's Atoms for Climate COP28 pavilion opening. Thank you for joining us at this event. I am Sophie Boutoud-Lacombe. I'm the Director of Communication and Public Information at the IAEA, and I will be your moderator today for this special event. So nuclear is a strong word, and people have strong opinion about nuclear. But are those opinions based on facts? Right here at the IAEA Atoms for Climate pavilion at COP28, over the next two weeks we will showcase science-based solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation, and monitoring. So those nuclear applications are used for energy, food, the ocean, and water to reduce emission, build resilience to the impact of climate change, and provide data for decision-making. In the rest two net zero, we need to hear all voices. And among those voices, it is crucial to hear what the next generation has to say. So for this reason, we have invited the world's first nuclear influencer, Isabelle Boiméke, to tell us why she's advocating for nuclear power. And with her, it is my great honor to introduce the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, who tirelessly serves our 178 member states. They are both here today to have a conversation about how they bring facts and science to the core of the debate. Isabelle, you launched your digital alter ego, Heizodob, to spread the word that nuclear is not just cool, but essential to fight climate crisis. Here is the opportunity for you to ask questions to the IAEA Director-General. What do you want to ask him? The floor is yours. Wow. Thank you so much, everybody, for being here. And I want to start with maybe the most important question to all of us here, which is, Pele or Maradona? No, but in all seriousness, all of them, all of them, we love all of them, especially if they support nuclear energy as a climate solution. But we're here today on COP 28, which is obviously the 28th time that this conference is happening. And I see a huge difference in how people talk about nuclear energy, how people make nuclear energy a part of the conversation. I would just like to hear from you, from your perspective, how has this evolution been? Well, it's an evolution. I would agree with you totally there, but still some of the old thinking is there. And we can see it there at very basic levels, because when you talk about decision makers, politicians, or other influential, as opposed to influencers, influential people, there is an agenda behind those opinions when they continue to be a call false information or misrepresentations. But I think still we need to be more efficient and more impactful when it comes to normal people. And one can see that some, the attitude, if I could resume it in some way, would be, okay, apparently nuclear is going to happen, but the but is there, like, well, we'll have to live with nuclear, yes, nuclear is clean and all of that, but oh, the dangers are still there. And what are you doing? Can you still reassure us? And I think this is like a new frontier that we have in the global debate that we will have to be to be facing, my opinion. So you think this is actually it comes from a place of having an agenda or you think is genuine misinformation? I think the normal in the normal people, it must be genuine. We may dislike the fact that normal people think in some in some way. The reason is why they are thinking in this way because they have been fed and they continue to receive information which is simplified or false. So I never get angry with or impatient with someone who, you know, from an innocent in the literal sense of the word and not pejorative from an innocent perspective will think about accidents or war. I think in this the war has been the war in Ukraine, I should say, because there are a few. But the war in Ukraine has also been a factor of preoccupation because people people say, well, why are you, I mean, it's very good what you do, but why do you need to do that? Is it not so that a nuclear facility could be a source of tremendous suffering for people? So I think we need to be extremely active and with with with information and explanation that it is not uniform, it is adapted to what people think and this is why I like so much when I was looking at your at your exes or tweets or or Instagrams or things. Because there is a clear message there that any everybody can can understand. And I think we need to have this this this flexibility to to know that that this is a societal issue. This is not a high politics issue. This is a societal debate that needs to be won. And for that to happen, we will have to be extremely nimble. I think, you know, I agree with your with your view that there's still so much misinformation, but I do see on the positive side that people are at least open to it now versus five years ago, or even three years ago when I started my work, it was a lot more resistant versus now there is this understanding of, OK, maybe we need nuclear energy and they are getting to that point. But I do think it's a very slow it's a slow process to get people there. And that's why I love your point about the diversity of voices because they can hear it from me. But if they hear it from me and from you and from 10 other people in this room who all have very different backgrounds, you know, that all adds to their information and it adds to their view that this is a safe technology and that and I think most importantly as well that it's OK to advocate for nuclear energy because and I've I've made this point before in several of my talks, so many politicians I've talked to, they would say, you know, yeah, I know we need nuclear, but I can't say it publicly, otherwise people are going to kill me. And I'm like, yeah, first of all, you're a leader. You should be the one that's leading and changing people's minds. But I think that giving people this license to support nuclear energy is very, very important. But yes, it is a very, very slow process. And I think we just can't right at this moment say, oh, things have changed. People are now on board. Let's just move on. We just have to push through and continue spreading the message. But you mentioned the war in Ukraine and just a curiosity, because, of course, the IAEA and you have been so present in the whole, you know, very unfortunate situation in Asia. How has that impacted how people see nuclear energy as, you know, a security element of their energy system? Because it's interesting, right? I think for years we have talked about how nuclear power plants could be the targets of terrorist attacks or wars or whatever. And in this case, it happened. And the result wasn't exactly what we were expecting. But I think it just raises a lot of interesting questions. What have you experienced some of those questions? Yes, yes, all the time, all the time the question comes. And I think, again, the the explanation is important. And what I always say is that this is a problem, but the problem is the war. The problem is not the nuclear power plant, whichever piece of infrastructure that could have been chosen. And in fact, when you when you look at it, I think it's the inherent safety of nuclear power plants that has made it so difficult because look at in the same war, in the same war, how, for example, the Novakarkovska dam, a big dam was destroyed. So would that mean that we do not need dams in the world because they could be destroyed in case there is a war? And we could see that perhaps here I don't have the exact knowledge, but it is obvious that because of the sturdiness and the robustness of nuclear reactors these days, that you any military commander could not reasonably think to shell directly. There has been shelling, which is very, very bad, but it was contained. It stopped, you know, until the very, very, very, very last day and until we make it safely when when this war sooner rather than later. I hope ends. We cannot say it for sure. But there has been, there hasn't been a constant bombardment of these reactors simply because now they are built in such a way that they can resist an airplane falling on them. So in a way, this is proof of their ability to withstand this challenge. Yes, there are lateral problems and I am the first to talk about them. I mean, if you cut the power lines, the cooling is not possible and so on and so forth. So I think this exists. But again, I think we have a good case where the combination of the action of the agency in a certain sense and the way in which nuclear power plants are conceived and are protected are strong arguments in a war. No one can say again what is going to happen. Crazy, you know, commander can decide to do something and well, and we would have a problem. I hope it will not be the case. But but yes, it's a it's a it's a very big question mark in this regard. But I think also that Chad's light on the double standard and I think we're all very familiar with it. I always love asking people what the biggest energy disaster was in history. And of course, everybody thinks of Chernobyl, but in reality, it was a hydropower dam in China in the 70s. It was the biggest energy disaster. And there is this double standard in the media where that dam in Ukraine was also destroyed, however, it didn't get as many headlines as obviously is the Parisia. So how can we also make sure that the media has the right information and that we are giving them the tools to be able to report with accuracy without, you know, making whatever problems seem much bigger than it is? Well, there are things that can be done to a certain extent, of course, because media is global is is is is you cannot cover world media. We we do have some initiatives within the agency. We talk to the press certain ways when we reach out to them and try to provide some basic information. My impression is that it needs a lot of time with them. I think you have to like in any public activity, you have to embrace the press something which is not understood or well known is is is not a good idea. And and Sophie, who is leading that that operation in that the agency knows that is very rare that I would say no to an interview. And it's not because I need notoriety, because frankly, it's not the case. It's because in every one of them, there is an opportunity. There's an opportunity to explain and to bring to bring an angle and interestingly back to the point that you were mentioning about the hidden dirty secret that I like nuclear energy in reality. When I talk when I talk to media from phasing out countries in the majority of the cases, they understand and they know what their what their reality is. So I think like you were saying, we are making steady progress in this regard. It will be very, very straight. Of course, you have certain media that will still, you know, pedal these things, but it's it's less and less. You will be very let's put it this way. It will be very, very strange at this point in time to have a major media outlet saying something baseless or flaw about nuclear could still happen. But I don't see and I don't want don't want to put any title to it. But it would be quite an exception to see one of the major ones in our part of the world or in the United States saying that nuclear is inherently unsafe. Maybe they will still come and put the question. How do you deal with this? What are you doing about this? This is, of course, legitimate, but this assumption that there is this is inherently dangerous. I think we can safely say that it is almost out of the table. That's my impression. Well, that has been my experience as well. I feel like the argument, the anti-nuclear arguments have evolved from being it's unsafe and what about the waste to now be more about cost and time to build and so on. So I think that goes to show how important and powerful it is that we keep sharing this information because even again, five years ago, people would still think that nuclear isn't safe. But now there is just so much data out there. They waste. I mean, this is the example, isn't it? Because this idea that we are that we are pushing a problem under the rug and passing it irresponsibly to the next generations. OK, OK, so we are good now, but our children, our grandchildren, et cetera, et cetera. So this is why this week, this week I spent in France and I went to the deep geological lab and they have the repository close to it. I've been in the Finnish one and the Swedish one. And the French was the one that was that was still missing. And and of course, they are doing a great job in explaining and engaging with the local communities, et cetera. But still in the interviews, there was a little bit of that. Well, you came here to visit that. This is a problem. How is it being dealt with? And my answer was this is on the contrary, the proof of how a sector is thinking responsibly about what is going to happen in 100,000 years. So I mean, it's so enormous that it I mean, it's it's even laughable at some point because you are, you know, imagining and which pushes in a way those who are countering these arguments to the absurd because when you have somebody saying, what if there is a leak in one million years? Wow. I mean, if this is the level where we are taking the the the the debate. Well, those people should ask themselves, why are they taking a bus in the morning or if they should continue driving their cars, et cetera. So I think in this in this sense, it is very important. But it's also important to tell the story, to tell the story and to tell it in an attractive way, like you have been doing, because it's a relatively let's admit it. It's a relatively arid topic with so many complications. And when you start explaining, well, you know, we people in nuclear, we tend to like it. I was in a fantastic event on fusion. But at some point I was asking myself, well, you know, people, we should stop because, you know, when you start really talking about, you know, the the processes, which is fantastic, fusion is such a promising thing. But the conversation can go to levels of abstraction that are a bit too much to handle. So but but it's important that public discussion is indispensable. Yeah, I think in my favor, just to add my favorite things to say about the ways is, first of all, show a photo because most people have no idea what they're talking about. When they say nuclear waste, they think green goo coming out of barrels. So just showing a photo. This is what it looks like of somebody next to it. And then, yes, I love this crazy imaginary scenarios. One of my favorite ones is, how are we going to warn aliens that land on earth and find nuclear waste facilities? And I'm like, put the sci fi book down. Like, it's not happening at the time. So yes, but yeah, I think just again, just continuously showing and trying to simplify the message as much as possible. But I guess one question I have for you is, what are you most excited about this cop specifically when it comes to energy? Well, yeah, I mean, this cop has been, you know, my my my first was cop 25, I believe only three months into the job. And as I like to remind some audiences, one that I did against the advice of some people around me, which I mean, it was well meant. I was the new DG that perhaps stupidly was trying to walk into the lion's mouth to be eaten up alive. And and when you when we see today where we are tomorrow, we are going to have presidents talking about tripling. This science fiction. Yes, yes, at a certain level, talking about tripling, nuclear energy. I mean, I think it is the proof that the debate has changed completely. There are other debates that are coming our way that are equally important in terms of delivering what what's in the promise because what we are saying here is what what we believe to be true and it is true that this is a great a great ally against all this climatic disaster we are going through. But of course, this is also a challenge in terms of delivering, delivering on time and and making it. So I think this cop will be remembered in this sense where people were able to approve this statement, saying, saying it loud and clear at that level. And what we are going to be seeing tomorrow is even more impressive in that in that regard. So COP 28 has has been, in my opinion, a watershed. I agree. I think it's going to be a landmark in nuclear energy and COP and all those discussions. And I totally agree with you. We are at a point where, you know, politicians are finally there, the public is finally there. And now it's all in the industry to deliver. You know, now is the time. And I keep saying this to, you know, every every time I speak to industry people is there were nuclear renaissance is in the past. And for one reason or another, they didn't pan out. And I think we are living through one right now. And if this doesn't move forward, we don't know what the next opportunity is going to be. So I think now is the time to just push forward from all angles, the communications, but also the industry to really get this right. You're getting once in a lifetime, once in a generation opportunity. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Isabel. You're absolutely right. So I think we have to continue. This is this is truly a good cause to argue for an honest, especially people like you or us. We do not have any commercial interest. We just believe in something which is inherently good, useful and is going to be so important at so many levels for economies, for a diverse workforce. I think we are going to see many, many women leading in nuclear. I see it already in the, you know, in the fellowship that we established for women. And I'm so happy, for example, to see that when I look at the break up of the specialties, the majority of the women participating in this is nuclear engineering. All right, it's not nuclear law or something. They are, I mean, so I'm so inspired by that. And also, you know, diversity in all its respects, not only gender, but geographically, and go in places with nuclear. So, and here is where SMRs and the possibility of having nuclear reactors in Africa, nuclear reactors in Latin American countries other than Brazil, Argentina or Mexico. So in other Central American small countries that really, really need it. I think this is one thing where we have to do stuff. So this is why we are trying to attack the problems where we see them. And I don't want to get into too much, too technical aspects, but where we see a problem and it's getting, you know, from the demand side, from the demand side. We talk to industry. This is something we were not doing enough and asking them, well, what are the, where do you see the problems and where, apart from what they need to, in terms of delivering. And they say, well, too much regulation, too much. It's asphyxiating us. So of course we are for regulation. We are a norm setting institution, but it's a debate that needed to happen. So we brought the regulators and we are having a forum. It doesn't matter how it's called, whatever. But we bring them, we bring them, with industry, we're knocking heads together. All right. In order to elicit, you know, like fission. Something comes. Very poetic. Yeah, I think on the regulation side it's, I think it's an important point and I think it's an important conversation, but there's so many industries that are ridiculously regulated as well. So I think that, you know, recognizing that it is what it is, I think it's a huge political lift to try to loosen regulations around nuclear, although I understand the need. But obviously having these conversations is extremely important and maybe it will lead somewhere. It's important. I think we need, we need, it's like medicine. You need the right dose. The right dose, you are fine. Otherwise you develop bacterial resistance. Exactly. Thank you, Isabel, and thank you, Digi Grossi, for this interesting and inspiring exchange. As my kid would say, that was dope. So please allow me also to thank all the people who were participating here in the room and online. So now our pavilion, Atoms for Climate Pavilion at COP is officially opened. Stay tuned. We've the IEA and follow our social media and IEA.org to see the entire program. Thank you. Merci. Merci, yes, obrigado. Merci. Thank you. Shukran. Shukran. Shukran.