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2013 IAEA General Conference
Remarks as Delivered
Secretary Ernest Moniz
Monday, September 16, 2013
Thank you, Ambassador MABHONGO. Congratulations on your election as
President of this Conference. I also want to thank DG Amano for his outstanding
leadership. I will start by reading a message from President Barack Obama:
“I send greetings to all those gathered for the 57th International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) General Conference. The United States supports the important
work of the IAEA and is strongly committed to the Agency’s goals of ensuring
the safe, secure, and peaceful uses of nuclear energy while steadfastly
preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
In Berlin this June, I reaffirmed America’s commitment to pursuing the peace
and security of a world without nuclear weapons. This is a long term goal, but
we must remain dedicated to the task. In the past 4 years, the United States has
taken significant, concrete steps toward achieving that goal by reducing the
number and role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.
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Today, the United States is working successfully with Russia to implement the
New START Treaty, which will result in the lowest levels of deployed nuclear
weapons since the 1950s. But the work is not done. As I said in Berlin, we can
ensure the security of America and our allies while reducing our deployed
strategic nuclear weapons by up to one-third below the New START level. And
I will seek to negotiate further reductions in nuclear weapons with Russia.
As we move toward the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, we must
ensure that the IAEA has the resources and is able to use all its authorities to
verify compliance with safeguards agreements. Member States must also
bolster the IAEA’s work to foster peaceful uses of nuclear energy in a safe and
secure manner, consistent with international nonproliferation norms. I welcome
and encourage all Member States to fully support the IAEA Action Plan on
Nuclear Safety, including a call for steps to establish a global nuclear liability
regime.
Securing vulnerable nuclear materials to prevent nuclear terrorism remains a
global priority. I am pleased that the IAEA has increased its focus on nuclear
security and commend the Agency for hosting its International Conference on
Nuclear Security in July of this year. Next year, the Netherlands will host the
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third Nuclear Security Summit, and I look forward to continuing this momentum
by hosting a fourth Summit in 2016.
Though we face continued challenges, let us take this opportunity to rededicate
ourselves to strengthening the IAEA and its vital role in preventing proliferation,
addressing noncompliance, and expanding access to the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy. I wish everyone all the best for a productive and successful General
Conference.”
Sixty years ago, President Eisenhower presented his “Atoms for Peace” proposal to
the UN General Assembly. Under his vision, “experts would be mobilized to
apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine, and other peaceful
activities [and] a special purpose would be to provide abundant electrical energy in
the power-starved areas of the world.”
His vision for nuclear power proved to be prophetic. Today’s global population is
7 billion – more than double the population of 1953 – and the demand for energy is
growing rapidly. But President Eisenhower did not anticipate the arrival of an
equally powerful challenge: climate change.
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The evidence is overwhelming and the science is clear; climate change is one of
the most pressing dangers of our generation. A changing climate is a threatmultiplier: from causing more severe droughts and fires, to intensifying storms, to
breeding new conflicts over displacement and resources; the costs are large in
terms of lives lost and economic impact.
As we look collectively at the challenge of working to reduce carbon emissions
while facilitating global development, nuclear energy clearly has a role to play. In
that regard, I suggest that we should begin looking beyond the era of “Atoms for
Peace” toward a model of “Atoms for Prosperity.”
Mr. President, the representatives in this room have the world’s population as their
constituency. Ensuring that the basic needs of our planet’s residents are met, while
working to reduce carbon emissions, is a daunting test both for our compassion and
our ability to innovate. Technical Cooperation is central to this effort.
Some of us are rising to the challenge: I want to thank Director General Amano for
his outstanding leadership in the effort to drive resources and attention toward
supporting global economic development goals. And the United States welcomes
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the partnership of 16 countries that have supported the IAEA’s Peaceful Uses
Initiative, or PUI, to benefit more than 120 Member States.
Together, PUI donors - including the United States, which itself has pledged $50
million over five years to the PUI, have helped to alleviate sustained drought in
Africa, improve agricultural productivity, ensure food safety, and better manage
water resources worldwide. The United States has also supported the IAEA’s
Environmental labs at Monaco to preserve a healthy marine environment – the
topic of this year’s Scientific Forum.
We would like to commend the European Union in particular for its recent and
generous PUI contribution, but more resources are needed. We encourage other
Member States to fund the PUI so that the IAEA can respond with speed and
flexibility to urgent and unanticipated needs in resource-deprived areas of the
world.
With its low carbon footprint, nuclear energy can and should remain an important
contributor to the global energy mix. But for nuclear power to remain viable and
politically sustainable, Member States and the IAEA must continue to ensure it is
used safely and securely for the “arts of peace.”
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The burden for improving the safety of nuclear power is ours to share. The
Fukushima disaster made clear that a nuclear accident anywhere has global
implications. All stakeholders – from government agencies to the nuclear power
industry – must work together to limit the likelihood that such a high-consequence
event could occur again, and to ensure that we can respond quickly and effectively
to nuclear or radiological emergencies if they happen.
In the United States, we have worked hard to enhance safety across our existing
reactor fleet and are constructing new nuclear reactors that incorporate passive
safety systems. U.S. companies are also developing small modular reactor designs,
which could be deployed in the next decade. The U.S. Department of Energy has
already finalized an agreement committing over $100M to support the engineering
development and licensing of a passively safe Small Modular Reactor and intends
to provide additional funding in the near future. We strongly urge countries that
may embark on nuclear programs to consider passively safe reactor designs.
While preventive measures are an urgent priority, unforeseen events require our
diligence in ensuring the victims of nuclear damage are compensated promptly and
equitably. As a significant step toward establishing a global nuclear liability
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regime, the United States and France recently signed a Joint Statement affirming
our commitment to promote efforts to achieve a global nuclear liability regime
based on treaty relations among France, the United States and other countries that
might be affected by a nuclear accident. The Joint Statement also urges countries
to adhere, as appropriately for each country, to the Revised Paris Convention, the
Revised Vienna Convention, and the Convention on Supplementary Compensation
for Nuclear Damage – or CSC – with an initial step of bringing the CSC into force.
The United States has ratified the CSC, which is the only existing international
nuclear liability instrument that the United States can ratify, and urges all countries
to ratify the CSC with a view toward bringing it into effect before the 2014
General Conference.
It is also critical that we be able to draw on the best expertise and technology in
times of emergency. This is why the United States is in the process of registering
additional capabilities in the IAEA Response and Assistance Network and
becoming an IAEA RANET Capacity Building Center.
Mr. President, the need for collective action extends beyond safety. The danger of
nuclear terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global security. The best
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way to stop individuals who would use nuclear material for malicious and violent
acts is to secure and eliminate it.
Since President Obama laid out his nuclear security agenda just over four years
ago, we and our international partners have made significant progress toward that
end. We have eliminated the use of HEU at 25 civilian research reactors and
isotope production facilities. We have removed all remaining HEU from 11
countries, and removed or confirmed the disposition of nearly 3,000 kilograms of
vulnerable HEU and plutonium. We also have raised awareness of the dangers of
WMD-related knowledge proliferation and the importance of enhancing nuclear
security culture.
I would like to congratulate the IAEA on maintaining this unprecedented
momentum by convening the inaugural International Conference on Nuclear
Security in July. I had the honor of attending this event, along with representatives
from roughly 125 Member States, and to witness firsthand the active and engaged
discussions between the policy and technical communities that participated.
The achievements I’ve described demonstrate our shared commitment to ensuring
that our worst fears do not come to pass. But despite this tremendous progress, our
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work is not done; the attention devoted to nuclear security should be
commensurate with the threat we face.
That is why The Netherlands will host the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit, and why
President Obama intends to host a fourth Nuclear Security Summit in 2016. Our
continued focus on nuclear security should also be reflected within the IAEA. This
is why the United States supports elevating the Office of Nuclear Security to
Division status.
We look forward to continuing our international cooperation, including with the
IAEA, to achieve our nuclear security goals.
Mr. President, verifying the peaceful nature of nuclear programs yields profound
and tangible benefits. Safeguards help bring about an international security
environment suitable for movement toward nuclear disarmament; they build
confidence among neighbors to keep regional peace, and among nuclear suppliers
to facilitate trade; and they send up warning flags in countries that would skirt the
rules to develop nuclear weapons.
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Mr. President, the world has repeatedly called upon Iran to resolve all outstanding
issues related to its nuclear program, including by addressing evidence of its
possible military dimensions. Regrettably, Iran continues to violate IAEA Board
and UN Security Council resolutions, and continues to take provocative actions
that raise legitimate concerns about the nature of its nuclear program, as outlined in
the DG’s most recent report to the Board.
North Korea must abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, and
return to the NPT and IAEA safeguards. The United States remains committed to
authentic and credible negotiations on denuclearization, but North Korea must take
concrete action to demonstrate a clear commitment and will to denuclearization.
The Assad regime refused for years to cooperate with the Agency to remedy its
noncompliance. We call on Syria to provide IAEA access to all relevant locations,
materials, and persons related to the Dair Alzour site, as required by the Board of
Governors.
These and other cases demonstrate that the IAEA must have the appropriate tools,
access, and resources to detect and deter undeclared nuclear programs. In that
regard, the United States believes that the combination of a comprehensive
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safeguards agreement (CSA) and an Additional Protocol (AP) is the international
standard for safeguards verification. We call on all States that have not yet done so
to bring into force a CSA and an AP as soon as possible.
We also call on all Member States to strengthen their financial and technical
support to IAEA safeguards by joining the United States and 20 other Member
State Support Programs that already are doing so. We welcome the Agency’s
continued efforts to make the implementation of safeguards more effective and
efficient, and welcome the DG’s report on the State Level Concept.
Mr. President, achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear
weapons will take sustained commitment through a concrete and practical step-bystep approach. President Obama reiterated and expanded upon his Prague Agenda
in Berlin this past June. We will work with the international community to ensure
that this vision becomes reality.
In the meantime, we will continue to meet our existing obligations. Let me
underscore just a few concrete achievements that demonstrate our commitment.
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We have disposed of excess, weapons-origin fissile material by down-blending
approximately 140 Metric Tons of HEU. As a transparency measure, the United
States cooperated with the IAEA to allow international monitoring of the
downblending of 50 Metric Tons of this material.
And we remain firmly committed to eliminating 34 Metric Tons of weapons-origin
plutonium under the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement under
IAEA verification.
And finally, this year we will celebrate a monumental accomplishment with our
Russian partners: the final shipment of LEU from the Russian Federation to the
United States under the landmark 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement. The final
delivery of material under this Agreement will result in the permanent elimination
of 500 Metric Tons of Russian, weapons-origin HEU -- roughly the equivalent of
20,000 nuclear weapons.
In conclusion, Mr. President, I began by referring to President Eisenhower’s
seminal “Atoms for Peace” speech. While it is important for us to remember its
legacy as we look ahead, we must challenge ourselves to learn hard lessons from
events that have occurred since then.
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Pursuing humanitarian goals while addressing threats that range from nuclear
accidents and proliferation to climate change are as serious as any challenges we
have faced in human history. But recent history teaches us that we can transform
adversity into a catalyst for innovation. The IAEA has a significant role to play,
but it will require our support.
We must bolster this important institution with action by dedicating our collective
resources to its mission. We must ensure that all countries that play by the rules
can bear the fruit of peaceful nuclear cooperation and that cheating does not go
unpunished. Strengthening the IAEA is worth the effort, so that future generations
may live in peace and prosperity where nuclear dangers are a distant memory.
Thank you.
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