May 14, 2018, Sochi - The 10th Anniversary Forum "ATOMEXPO-2018" hosted a round table "Harmony in public acceptance: can the global nuclear industry achieve it by 2050?".
Its speakers – international experts noted that global cooperation in public acceptance is indeed very important for achieving the objectives of the World Nuclear Association’s "Harmony" program. Program’s main goal is to commission up to 1,000 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2050 in order to implement the Paris Agreement on the reduction of CO2 emissions.
Representatives of countries that added nuclear to their energy mix long ago like Russia, Great Britain, Finland, Hungary and South Africa, as well as newcomers, who are just embarking on their nuclear project projects, the Philippines, Kenya, Ghana, took part in the discussion.
The event was opened by Kirill Komarov, First Deputy Director General for Corporate Development and International Business of ROSATOM, who emphasized: "The ambitious goal facing the world nuclear community is unattainable without the support of society and requires the cooperation of all market players. We are grateful to the World Nuclear Association for its leadership in uniting all participants of the nuclear community for the benefit of our common goals. To achieve these common goals, Rosatom is ready to share its best practices in public acceptance. "
World Nuclear Association representative Jeremy Gordon, Advisor to The Harmony Programme, noted: "We need all the clean sources of energy, nuclear included. And nuclear power is growing at the fastest rate in 25 years, including countries bringing in nuclear power for the first time like the UAE, Turkey, Belarus and Bangladesh. What the Harmony Programme intends to do is improve the business environment to enable nuclear to play its full role by: establishing a level playing field economically, creating an effective safety paradigm and ensuring harmonized regulatory process".
The event aroused great interest of the Forum guests. The roundtable participants (Attila Aszódi, State secretary for the maintenance of the performance of the Paks NPP, Hungary; Minna Forsström, Project Director, Fennovoima, Finland; Anthonie Cilliers, Honorary research fellow at the School of Mechanical, Industrial & Aeronautical Engineering of the Witwatersrand University and Regional Coordinator, African Nuclear Education, Science and Technology (AFRA-NEST), South Africa, etc) exchanged their best practices in communicating with public in their countries and also the ways of using local specifics while developing and implementing communication strategies for nuclear projects.
According to the participants, the round table was another step towards successful global cooperation in the field of public acceptance.