The Platform for Redesign 2020 was established in conjunction with an online ministerial meeting to be held on September 3, and which will be chaired by Japan’s Minister of the Environment Shinjiro Koizumi. The ministerial meeting is a platform for sharing information from countries on their activities regarding recovery from the pandemic, as well as measures on climate change and other environmental issues.

Ministers from various countries, international organizations, local municipalities, industries, and citizens have been invited to submit video messages, which are expected to be taken up one by one on the platform’s website.

Included in the joint video message from the various countries’ nuclear industries will be comments by the following executives:

  • President Shiro Arai of JAIF
  • President and CEO Maria G. Korsnick of the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI)
  • Director General Yves Desbazeille of the Foratom (The Voice of the European Nuclear Industry)
  • Chief Executive Tom Greatrex of the UK Nuclear Industry Association (NIA)
  • President and CEO John Gorman of the Canadian Nuclear Association (CNA).

In order to deal with the two crises we are facing—the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change—a sustainable and resilient socioeconomic system must be built, to which nuclear power can make a major contribution. The message presents the value of nuclear energy from such viewpoints as stable supply, reduction of carbon-dioxide emissions, energy security, and economic recovery.

When creating the online ministerial meeting, Minister Koizumi outlined its two purposes as follows:

(1) Sharing information and knowledge of recovery in various countries from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as on climate change and other environmental issues.

(2) Building momentum to proceed with measures on climate change, rather than allowing them to stall now that COP26 has been postponed due to the pandemic.

He also talked about his enthusiasm for Japan’s “taking the initiative in the global community” as the country that had chaired the milestone ministerial meetings at COP3 in 1997. The results of the September 3 meeting will be presented on the Platform for Redesign 2020.

Written Statement:  Voices from Nuclear Industry