Staff Report Islamabad
Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Mariano Grossi called on Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam in Glasgow city, the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom.
Both sides discussed various areas of cooperation for promotion of nuclear energy as clean energy in Pakistan, according to press release issued here on Tuesday from the climate change ministry.
The meeting was held at the Pakistan Pavilion on the sidelines of the two-week UN climate summit that began on Sunday, 2021.
Malik Amin Aslam is in Glasgow and is leading Pakistan’s delegation at the crucial U.N. climate summit amid at intense diplomatic negotiations over the next two weeks by almost 200 countries reaching a consensus over approaches to slow intensifying global warming and adapting to the climate damage already underway.
During the meeting the PM’s aide underscored that nuclear power, as a zero-carbon source of energy, had an indispensable role to play in support of global efforts to combat and mitigate the effects of climate change.
He also briefed the IAEA’s director general on Pakistan’s ambition to attain the goal 60 percent of the clean green energy share in the country’s mix by 2030.
Malik Amin added that Pakistan’s efforts to mitigate Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions included the use of nuclear energy for power generation.
Malik Amin also informed the IAEA director general that the country’s revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), a carbon reduction framework, under the Paris climate pact 2015 envisaged avoidance of around 50 million tons of CO2 equivalent on annual basis by 2030, mostly by replacing coal-fired power plants with renewable, clean energy projects.
