VIENNA: Pakistan urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday to help it effectively deal with the challenges of global warming and climate change.

“The IAEA and Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, growing together for the last 60 years, can effectively confront one of the greatest challenges faced by humanity today, that is global warming and the associated climate change,” PAEC Chairman Mohammad Naeem said.

Addressing the 60th session of the IAEA General Conference being held in Austria, he said Pakistan was one of the 10 countries most affected by this change.

“It is for this reason that nuclear power’s contribution in our energy mix is planned to be increased substantially in future.

“Nuclear technology also offers means of study and mitigation of climate change. The agency may aggr­e­s­sively promote the development of relevant nuclear techniques. Techni­cal cooperation programmes in this area should be strengthened,” he said.

Guided by the past interactions, he added, Pakistan remained committed to collaborating even more with the agency for harnessing the vast potential of nuclear technology.

“The sustainable development goals will require even more input of nuclear technology. Nuclear power also has its role in the energy mix of the future; it has to make this contribution in a manner that is safe and beneficial.

“This is the reason that increasing number of countries are wishing to embark on nuclear power programmes. This expansion requires a greater contribution on the part of the agency as most of the countries wishing to start their nuclear power programmes look towards the IAEA for guidance and support,” Mr Naeem said.

Pakistan’s first Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp), connected to the grid in 1972, continues to function without vender support and has recently set new record of continuous operation. He said the safe and successful operation of the plant gave the country the confidence to further pursue and advance the nuclear power option to cope with its severe electricity shortage. Two 325MW Chashma nuclear power plants — units C-1 and C-2 — continued to operate successfully and economically and two more units — C-3 and C-4 — in this series were expected to be connected to the grid in the coming months, he said.

Published in Dawn September 29th, 2016

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