SHAPE'2012: 2nd Summit of Honor on Atoms for Peace and Environment

Overzicht

SHAPE stands for Summit of Honor on Atoms for Peace and Environment. The 1^st edition of this conference took place in Seoul (ROK) from March 10 to 12, 2010. More than 150 participants, leaders in the nuclear industry and nuclear decision makers attended the summit to discuss nuclear energy and security issues. The attendees include Dr Mohamed El Baradei (Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency), Paolo Cotta-Ramusino (Secretary General of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs), Kim Young-Sam (Former President of South Korea), and political leaders as well as academic professors and industrial experts from 17 different countries around the globe. SHAPE’2010 was chaired by President Kim Young-Sam and Dr Mohamed El Baradei.

The five plenary sessions scheduled in SHAPE’2010 covered the following topics:

1. Nuclear Weapon Free World (NWFW)
2. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review
3. Multilateral Security Cooperation
4. Multi-national Fuel Cycle Approach
5. Non-proliferation Education & Campaign

The peaceful use of nuclear energy is critical for mankind and there have been several multilateral agreements to prevent the misuse of nuclear power. The summit is to take a step forward to reach the "Nuclear Weapon Free World".  Political, academic, and business leaders gathered to discuss the use of nuclear power for the benefit of all mankind.

Nuclear non-proliferation has to start from people's awareness.  The session discussed how to gather common awareness on nuclear non-proliferation. Several concrete plans to educate people were discussed to create a world without nuclear weapons.  Furthermore, nuclear non-proliferation education through global network is expected to be implemented to be more effective.

While many leading countries are expanding their nuclear industry, the demand for nuclear power has rapidly increased due to scarcity of oil. Therefore a better use of the natural resources and better control of high level nuclear waste in terms of volume and burden duration is becoming a mandatory topic of research and development and demonstration in the coming two decades.

A final declaration has been made by the SHAPE’2010 (see appendix) and called for the continuation of this initiative and organise this summit on a regular frequency of bi-annual basis. Belgium volunteered to organise the second edition of SHAPE in Brussels in 2012.