Nuclear energy should be considered to tackle climate change and decarbonise electricity systems.

Agneta Rising, Director General at the World Nuclear Association (WNA) believes it should be part of the discussions at the COP21 conference in Paris later this year.

She told ELN: “There are very few options that are proven and scalable and can be done at a good and affordable price. Nuclear is in fact the only low carbon technology that is proven and you see the countries that have low emissions today, they are using nuclear. No country in the world has decarbonised their electricity system without nuclear. You need nuclear to decarbonise.”

At the WNA’s Symposium 2015 in central London today, Ms Rising said the sector is still recovering from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan four years ago.

She added: “The safety learning and upgrades are planned or ongoing and public opinion is also back to levels before the accident.”

The WNA has set a goal of 1,000GW of installed capacity by 2050.

Ms Rising said: “It is a very ambitious goal but [the sector] is still building on knowledge we have since before the 1980s.”

She added nuclear energy is “extremely important” and part of the solution to meet climate change goals.