Nuclear energy and sustainable development11The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the IAEA or its Member States

The year 2015 will bring key milestones in two areas related to global energy policies and governance: sustainable development and climate change. The current United Nations (UN) sustainable development framework, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will terminate in 2015 and a new programme will start based on a new set of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’. The Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) mandates parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (2012) “to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention” that will provide the global framework for managing the climate change problem, in particular the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions after 2020. The two areas are inextricably linked through two key components of sustainable development: energy and climate. The targets, allocation of mitigation commitments and resources, and modalities of implementation of the post-Kyoto climate agreement will significantly affect not only the environmental and resource pillar of sustainable development but also the economic and social pillars. International negotiations are underway in both of these areas. Some progress has been made but there is still a long way to go until formal agreements can be signed. Therefore it is particularly important to define analytical and policy frameworks that allow all stakeholders consider the full range of options that might foster progress towards achieving sustainable development and climate change mitigation goals in an environmentally effective and economically efficient way. Energy plays a key role in both areas. Energy has been seen as a crucial enabler of achieving the MDGs in the near term (Brew-Hammond, 2012) and of transition to long-term sustainable development (United Nations (UN), 2011) while energy-related GHG emissions are the single most important drivers of anthropogenic climate change.