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

Mr President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

This General Conference is taking place at a pivotal moment. These are extremely challenging times. Acts of terrorism, multiple military conflicts, and the erosion of nuclear norms are all happening against a growing gap between poverty and prosperity.

At times like these, international organizations have two choices: Continue business as usual or rise to meet the challenge.

Today I will tell you how the IAEA has been responding through its unique mandate, one that spans all the way from reducing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation – and ultimately therefore also the risk of nuclear war – to using nuclear science and technology to help feed families, light cities and care for children with cancer.

Let me begin at the sharp end.

When the IAEA confirms the peaceful use of a State’s nuclear material, confidence over nuclear activities is established. History shows that when confidence disappears, international peace and security are at risk. Remember what happened in Iraq, in Syria and most recently, and dramatically, in Iran.

In June, after the attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, we had to withdraw our inspectors.

For the past weeks, in this unique situation, we have worked with Iran on practical steps aimed at resuming the full 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 agreement that provides a clear understanding of the procedures for inspection, notifications, and implementation. While taking into consideration Iran’s concerns, it is still in line with the relevant provisions of Iran’s Comprehensive Safeguard Agreement with this Agency.

It is now time to implement the agreement. I am confident that a return of IAEA inspectors and the resumption of safeguards implementation in Iran would serve as a good sign that agreements and understandings are possible and that nothing replaces dialogue in the pursuit of durable, lasting solutions to international challenges.

In the past, a long shadow of doubt has also been cast over the Syrian Arab Republic’s nuclear programme. I believe we now have a chance to shine a light on the matter. Earlier this year, I met Syrian President Mr Ahmed Al-Sharaa and senior ministers, and they agreed to cooperate with full transparency. Since then, we have undertaken a process of verification, which once complete, I am confident will lead to a lasting resolution of Syria’s past nuclear activities, opening the way to its full reintegration into the international community.

Reflecting on these developments, I have said to the UN Security Council that the global nuclear non-proliferation regime is under significant strain and that we need to protect it.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues its nuclear weapons programme in contravention of several UN Security Council resolutions, serving as a reminder of the consequences of red lines being crossed.

But challenges are coming from new quarters too. Even within some countries in good standing with their obligations under the NPT, there are now open discussions about whether or not to acquire nuclear weapons. Think for a minute about a world where instead of a few, we would have 20 or 25 countries armed with nuclear weapons.

Your support of the non-proliferation regime, the NPT and the IAEA, is crucial. I urge Member States to recommit to a system that has been one of the most important foundations for international peace, even during the tensest decades of our generation. It is absolutely indispensable now, when the world again is so deeply divided.

Mr President,

In February 2022 war returned to Europe and for the first time threatened a major nuclear power programme. The possibility of a nuclear accident at Europe’s biggest Nuclear Power Plant loomed. The IAEA was not just going to take notes from the sidelines.

Three years ago, I led a dedicated team of Agency staff across the frontlines under gunfire, and we deployed the first ISAMZ mission to the ZaporizhzhyaNuclear Power Plant.

Since then, the IAEA has sent more than 200 missions involving nearly 200 staff to nuclear power plants in Ukraine. We are present on the ground at all the sites.

Our people are actively supporting operators in looking after the Seven Pillars of nuclear safety and security and the Five Principles for protecting the Zaporizhzhya NPP, and we are keeping the international community updated on the situation at each site.

At Zaporizhzhya NPP, military action still endangers the site, and the reactors remain in cold shutdown. But power is still required for safety and water for cooling – both are severely compromised.

At Chornobyl and at the three operating Nuclear Power Plants in Ukraine –  Rivne NPP, South Ukraine NPP, Khmelnytsky NPP – our teams have reported a significant increase in military activities in recent weeks.

This February, a drone attack damaged the Chornobyl site’s New Safe Confinement (NSC) dome. I again met President Zelenskyy, just a couple of months ago in Rome, this time to agree a comprehensive framework of support, including with regard to the damaged dome. Soon I will return to the Russian Federation to continue our indispensable dialogue on nuclear safety.

In another area of importance for nuclear safety, the IAEA has confirmed that the tritium concentrations in all batches of ALPS-treated water that have been discharged from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to date have been far below operational limits and fully in line with international safety standards – and this, under the impartial eye of the IAEA and a number of States that have been invited to participate in this unique exercise of transparency. Member States have recognized the IAEA’s comprehensive independent international monitoring of the discharge process and our collection and analysis of samples, appreciating the clarity it brings to this sensitive matter.

Mr President,  

For decades, the world has been lamenting pollution and climate change, but for many years it was silent about one of the proven, scalable solutions.

Even the IAEA and many of the countries that had made enormous progress towards their climate goals thanks to nuclear power were timid about talking about its benefits and excellent safety record.

My first trip as DG was to the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid. I was the first head of the IAEA to attend a COP meeting. I felt like a lonely voice. But slowly, the facts have been chipping away at misplaced ideology and then three years ago the abrupt prioritization of energy security put nuclear power squarely back on the agenda in many countries. I have described this as a “return to realism” and it is reflected in the data. By 2050, nuclear energy capacity is now expected to increase as much as two and a half times. 

Everywhere I go, people are talking about wanting nuclear energy. In Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia interest is growing.

How do you finance a nuclear power plant? What are the necessary legal instruments and regulatory institutions? When will Small Modular Reactors come on the market?

These are some of the questions we field every day, not only because the IAEA is the centre of global nuclear, but also because building nuclear capacity is not as simple as flipping a light switch.

Here are the top three keys to unlocking global nuclear capacity: Newcomer countries require support; regulation must adapt; and financing needs to be made possible. In all three areas the IAEA is working full steam ahead.

Today, nearly 40 countries are at different stages of development, from carrying out initial studies to constructing their first plants. More than 20 others are exploring nuclear as part of their future energy mix. The IAEA’s Milestones Approach remains the gold standard when it comes to developing a new nuclear programme.

In the past year, we have conducted follow-up Integrated Nuclear Infrastructure Review missions in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Next year we are planning additional missions as newcomers, including Bangladesh and Türkiye, look to commission their first nuclear power reactors.

We also held our first SMR Schools in Kenya, Thailand and Argentina, benefitting their respective regions by training national authorities, regulators and stakeholders on SMR technology, regulation and engagement.

If SMRs are to be deployed globally, regulators will need to modernize, adapting their approaches to become faster without compromising safety. Our Nuclear Harmonization and Standardization Initiative, or NHSI, has been ahead of the curve, bringing together stakeholders to find ways of harmonizing approaches to regulation and design.

We also continue to support non-power applications of nuclear energy, from hydrogen production to industrial heat, and seawater desalination to marine propulsion. Marine-based SMRs in particular are emerging as sought after solutions for offshore platforms, remote coastal communities and commercial shipping. The Agency is set to ramp up its support in this area through my new initiative, ATLAS, or Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea.

Financing also needs a new approach, not only in developed countries where we have strongly supported advances like the EU taxonomy.

Even more important to the IAEA’s mission is making sure that developing countries are not left behind. For many months I have been speaking to development banks and international financial institutions about how the people and governments we – and they – serve want nuclear power. Most of the countries actively considering adding nuclear to their energy mix are from the developing world, many from Africa.

I am grateful the World Bank now shares our vision, agreeing it was high time to end the unjustified, ideologically driven limitation on supporting the financing of new nuclear power.

The block on developing countries being able to choose their own path is off. The block on creating a more diverse financial market and thereby also a more international nuclear sector is off. I am confident that by the time we meet next year, other development banks and international financial institutions will have followed the World Bank’s lead.

This year the IAEA will be present at the next UN Climate Change Conference, COP30 in Belém, Brazil, and engaging again with the G20 under South Africa’s presidency.

But we are not only focused on the international stage. Global nuclear depends on local acceptance — social license, in reality, is the first license to operate.

Recently, our first International Conference on Stakeholder Engagement for Nuclear Power Programmes brought together nearly 900 participants, including mayors from communities that host nuclear sites. No one is better placed to talk about what it means to have a nuclear power plant or related facility in their back yard.

Mr President,

Cancer is an acute crisis in many developing countries. It is a crisis for the child whose kidneys are needlessly failing. It is a crisis for the grieving parents. It is a crisis for the nurses and doctors who cannot diagnose the problem because they do not have a radiotherapy machine. It is a crisis for the communities in which very ill people are lying immobile in hospitals rather than teaching students, running companies, and harvesting fields. Finally, cancer is a crisis for the nations whose progress is being pushed back by lives cut short, health systems brought to the brink and economies undermined.

When I arrived as your Director General I was convinced not enough was being done and that the IAEA could be the catalyst for doing more. Launching our Rays of Hope initiative three years ago has proven that right, on both counts. It has proven the IAEA can be a catalyst for real, substantial progress in cancer care. Through Rays of Hope, concrete actions have been taken in 40 countries: hospitals have been built, radiotherapy machines procured, physicists trained, and lives saved

Many people have worked with us, from the heads of state and ministers whose stewardship made us partners, to the community leaders, donors, company executives, doctors and patients making their vision a reality.

These past three years have also proven that more still needs to be done. So we will continue, energized by the knowledge that we can and must do more. 

Mr President,

Our planet is our beautiful common home, and nuclear science and technology are incredibly effective tools we can use in the service of our house and the people who live there.

With a family of 8 billion, we cannot keep using a teaspoon to sow each seed in our garden, a cup to water it, and an old scarecrow to shoo away the pests.  In a world of abundance, 700 million people should not have to go to bed hungry every night.

Atoms4Food provides tailor-made solutions that boost food security, support food safety and nutrition, and reduce agriculture’s strain on the environment. This joint initiative between the IAEA and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is supporting the use of irradiation to create hardier varieties of crops like bananas, sorghum, rice and casava. It is helping communities better manage their precious water supplies by using techniques like isotope hydrology. And it is helping farmers use the environmentally friendly Sterile Insect Technique to fight off pests like the fruit fly and New World Screwworm.

Water is life and this year’s Scientific Forum, which takes place tomorrow and Wednesday, has as its theme Atoms for Water. It will showcase the many ways nuclear science and technology support the management of our world’s water systems.  

On Wednesday, is the inauguration of our new IAEA Visitor Centre in Seibersdorf, where the modernization of our laboratories is complete and labs are expected to be fully operational by year-end. At the Visitor Centre’s you will find highly engaging interactive museum-quality displays telling the story of the Agency’s work and serving as a cornerstone of our revamped and upgraded outreach efforts.

You will be able to learn about all our initiatives, including NUTEC Plastics, which I launched in 2020.

Microplastics are everywhere. We cannot escape them – we breath them in, we eat them, we swim in them and so do the creatures with whom we share our common home. For a source of pollution so ubiquitous, we know far too little about how microplastics travel through our ecosystems and what impact they are having. NUTEC Plastics takes a two-pronged approach to dealing with plastic pollution. One prong supports 100 Member States keen to use technology like infra-red spectroscopy to monitor and characterize microplastic marine pollution, from coastal Africa to the Galapagos Islands. The second, supports 52 Member States, including Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, who want to use radiation-assisted technology to upcycle plastic waste into valuable products like construction material.  

Ladies and gentlemen,

I don’t think any of us take for granted anymore that we can meet in this room and talk about combating plastic pollution, or any of the many other issues we will be discussing this week. Not one of us wants to go back the deafening silence of the COVID lockdowns.

That’s why we launched Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action, or ZODIAC, in the midst of the last pandemic, even as we were delivering the biggest emergency response programme in the Agency’s history.

Since then, ZODIAC has improved the preparedness of countries around the world. One hundred and twenty-nine national laboratories have joined the ZODIAC network, and 151 Member States have designated a national coordinator. More and more potentially devastating pathogens are being characterized, and the iVetNet platform now tracks data from more than 2 400 institutions.

We are looking directly into the ugly face of the zoonotic threat and saying: “Not again.”   

The future is too exciting to miss.

In the history of humankind, we have never before had the chance to know and do so much.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are giving each of us the chance to create the future we want. Never before have curiosity and imagination had such powerful tools at their disposal.

But those tools require a lot of energy and the technology companies building one data centre after another know it. Not a week seems to go by without a tech executive announcing a nuclear energy deal.

AI and nuclear energy have a two-way relationship – nuclear can power AI data centres and AI can help improve the way nuclear operates, and so in December, the IAEA will bring together the nuclear sector and the technology sector for the first International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Energy.  I encourage you to join us in what I am sure will be a very exciting meeting of technology minds.

Another reason to be excited about the future is that fusion energy is now entering the next leg of its long journey. Private capital and public programmes are accelerating progress towards demonstration plants, and I am sure that most of us in this room will be alive to see the first commercial fusion energy plant send its first pulse of electricity to the grid.

The IAEA is playing its own part in making it happen. The second World Fusion Energy Group meeting to be held in Chengdu next month alongside the 30th IAEA Fusion Energy Conference, will advance work on regulatory frameworks, commercialization pathways and public engagement.

Mr President,

Every challenge is an opportunity. Peace is not simply the absence of conflict. It is dynamic, hopeful striving that I see in what we do all around the world, together 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 among men and women working in the Professional and higher categories in December 2024. I announced the target of 2025 even before taking office as Director General in 2019, back when women made up about 30 per cent of those roles.  Meanwhile, our dedicated programmes to widen the workforce of the global nuclear sector continue, including the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme and the Lise Meitner Programme. 

Now let us begin the week. I look forward to meeting with you and listening to your priorities. Let’s make the most of our GC, so that, at the end of the week, we go back to the different rooms of our shared global home with a renewed sense of purpose and enthusiasm.