 But for this year we now have 960 joules to the introduction of the drip irrigation. Really I would like to say it was a blessing to the school. Innovations in plant breeding are speeding up the rate that better crop varieties can be developed to reduce global hunger. For nearly a hundred years gamma rays have been used to safely induce mutations and enhance the genetic diversity of crops like barley or quinoa. Mutation breeding has already developed thousands of improved crop varieties with valuable traits for farmers such as resistance to disease or tolerance to drought. Nuclear scientists are now taking a new approach using genetic markers to find the chosen mutant trait so that breeders don't have to grow several generations to find out if a plant has the desired mutation. So it's something that can accelerate and enhance the impact of mutation breeding. The goal is to be able to quickly identify a positive trait in a mutant plant and then introduce that trait in other varieties. What we hope to say to the member states in the future is first of all that we'll have a toolkit that allows us to introduce traits that are interested into their locally adapted varieties and then equally important I think that we can provide the training on how to do it themselves in the future. A global project to track the journeys of specific raindrops is harnessing the power of big data to monitor water supplies for our thirsty planet. Every month for over 50 years researchers have gathered rainwater from stations like this in Vienna and hundreds of other sites around the world. The unique isotopic signatures or fingerprints of each rain sample are recorded and this information is entered into a large online database where it's compared to similar data from surface water to see which raindrops end up in which rivers. This large amount of data allows researchers to better understand the water cycle for example how, when and where water is recharged. This information is key for managing water resources especially in the light of climate change. The data sets and maps are available to download for free and can be used in many ways for example in Costa Rica where they're helping the government identify key locations to protect groundwater so they can target conservation measures and avoid drought. We now know which areas need special attention. We know how to protect them to ensure water supply for now in the coming decades. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome to the audience both here physically in Glasgow and also online and our distinguished panelists on this cold rainy day in Glasgow where we are gathered here on the sidelines of the COP26 for our side event. We will talk about a topic of great relevance to the future of humanity and that is how to adapt to an ever-warming world. My name is Martin Kraus, I'm the moderator of this event here today and I'm joined by my colleague Jodi Miller. Jodi, welcome also, I will introduce you later. You will also have the chance to speak as part of our panel here. So here at COP26 climate adaptation and climate resilience is a very important and a very hot topic. Within the nuclear community, we have been talking for many years about nuclear technologies and nuclear approaches and nuclear application in the context of agriculture, environment, land and water. But now I believe is the time that we combine these two discussion streams and that is why we have an event here today on nuclear applications, nuclear technologies, nuclear techniques in the context of climate adaptation. Firstly, in the first part of our event here we will talk about climate smart agriculture. As many of you know, climate change is wreaking havoc on food systems around the world. We see shorter growing seasons, droughts, floods, pests and crop diseases and they all threaten livelihoods of farmers and communities. Climate smart agriculture is crucial for global food security as it allows our food systems to become more resilient to climate shocks. Nuclear science and technology has a key role to play and in part one of our event you will find out how that is the case. The second part of this event here this afternoon is dedicated to the oceans. We will learn about the crucial contribution of nuclear techniques in revealing the changes in the oceans such as ocean acidification and also we will discuss a phenomenon known as the blue carbon. So without further ado let me now invite you to hear the opening remarks of our director general Mr. Raphael Mariano Grossi. This glass vial contains carbon dioxide here, a greenhouse gas that causes climate change. What you see here or rather don't see is the global reference for CO2. It is a product of the IAA's laboratory in Zyberstof, Austria. The IAA uses nuclear science to produce several such indispensable reference materials and provides them to labs all over the world. Nuclear science and techniques can do so much by analyzing the isotope ratio of carbon in this CO2. We can identify whether it comes from oceans, from the atmosphere or from fossil fuel combustion. This is what the precision of nuclear science and technology can do. It allows us to help member states mitigate and adapt to our warming planet in many other ways too. We help countries improve food security by breeding hard-eared crops. We help farmers establish climate smart agriculture practices. We help communities know how much groundwater they have now and in the future. We help monitor ocean change and acidification. We help vets and doctors understand the impact of global warming on zoonotic diseases. We help experts fight pests like the mosquito and fruit fly. The IAA has decades of experience assisting countries in the use of nuclear science and technology. Often, we do this with partners like the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization. Today, we invite you into the IAA's world, to the fields, to the oceans and laboratories where we turn nuclear science and technology into climate action. So dear participants, in this very first session, we will talk about the impacts of climate change on agriculture. And I'm honored to welcome the distinguished professor, Guy Midley, who will be telling us about the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in this regard. Professor Midley is a professor at the Stellenbosch University in South Africa and he's also the coordinating lead author on the fourth, fifth and sixth assessment IPCC assessment reports. So, Guy, let me ask you, can you tell us a little bit about the big picture in terms of the climate impacts on the agricultural sector at a global scale? What actually does the latest IPCC report say about that? Oh, thank you for having me. I referred to the 2019 report of the special IPCC report on land, which is the most recent IPCC report. We're expecting a new report art early next year, but so far I can't really share those results yet. They haven't been released yet. But basically, let's start with the good news. Since about 1961, a lot of agricultural products have increased in availability. So vegetable oil and meat calories have more than doubled and food calories per capita available on the planet are up about 30%. But that's come at a cost. It's come at a cost of the fact that we direct more than between 25 and 30% of global productivity towards ourselves. So the human population is taking about 25 to 30% of all the energy captured by life and directing it towards ourselves. That has an environmental impact. We also use about 70% of the freshwater in our food chains. So those are big costs. What are the impacts of climate change? Well, crops and animal agriculture around the world is sensitive and vulnerable to warming and drying and extreme events. We also are anticipating and starting to see the shifts in climatic zones. So agricultural zones have to shift and that has land use change implications. Salinization of groundwater is another issue which has to be dealt with. And if you put that all together and talk about what does it mean for food security, this land report estimates that food supply instability will start to become significant and widespread as the world hits about 1.3 degrees of warming. That's not very far away. That could happen within the next 10 to 15 years. So that is the main findings of this latest report. Guys, thank you very much for painting that picture and the impact of climate change on agriculture and related effects on food security or better food insecurity. Now, if we look a little bit in more detail, you know, I'm sure that there are many regional and also local differences. Which are the regions that are most vulnerable and does it make sense actually to talk about global strategies and global solutions for adapting agriculture to climate impacts given that we have so many, you know, local and regional differences? I think that's a great question. You know, the food supply system, food chains across the planet are fantastically complex and really emblematic of the fact that we're a global family. So I do think it makes sense to ask that question to global level but with an awareness and understanding of what happens regionally because we need regional solutions for different regional settings. There's no question that that is required. So certain regions are under particular risk. Africa comes out very strongly affected. There is strong evidence that, for example, maize yields are already dropping on the continent and have dropped by several percentage points. And animal growth rates have dropped in Africa as have the productivity of pastoral systems and that affects the poorest of the poor in Africa. It's a very significant issue and I'm sure that it is not only true of Africa but probably across the tropics and subtropics. Dry land systems are particularly threatened by increasing drought and heat. Mediterranean regions, some of the richest crop production areas on the planet have been affected by drought. California, Western Australia, my region of the world, the southwestern tip of Africa and the Mediterranean region. All these areas that produce these fantastic crops like red wine are under considerable threat. And as a planet, we worry about these amazing products from around the world that may become less available and more expensive. Fire events are affecting crops in certain regions like the Mediterranean and have tainted wines and have destroyed vineyards. We've seen some drought related crises, even in Europe. In 2003, the heat wave fires and drought caused massive losses in crops and we saw how vulnerable this food system is. Tropical crops are very vulnerable when you get to about two degrees of warming, very, very vulnerable. So we're all in this together. We're a family and the food that our family feeds upon is under risk. And it's a family problem. We've got to solve it as a family. So let's get to it. Guys, thank you very much for that. We are here at the COP26 and you were saying we are a family. We are all in this together in a way. What would you say needs to be done to reverse the trend of increasing vulnerability that you have painted? What needs to be done here at COP? What needs to be done from the international organizations? I'm representing an international organization within the UN system here. What is expected from us? What needs to be done to reverse this trend of increased vulnerability in the agricultural sector? Well, two things. We know what they are, mitigation and adaptation. And we've seen some fantastic signs this week at the COP. My country signed a deal to get our dirty fossil fuel electrical engine off of coal. We've seen pledges for the end of coal. We've seen pledges for the ending of deforestation. Methane emission limitations. India has announced it wants to be carbon neutral by 2070. Other countries have come out and started to make much more ambitious announcements. For the first time ever, the model has told us we have a chance of staying below two degrees. We need to get further and hopefully the momentum will keep building and will take us lower. But then adaptation is vital. We are committed to a certain amount of warming. And we need the technology for adaptation, particularly in agriculture. We are going to need to adapt across the board. And we need to share those technologies. We need to learn from each other. We have genetic resources across the planet that we can draw upon. And it's, again, it's a family response. We are in this together and we should work together to solve it. If we can get our energy systems aligned, get that problem out of the way. We know how to do it. Let's just go for it. And then we can start to tackle these really difficult problems and stop obsessing about energy. If we can just get that one out of the way, we can work on the really tricky ones. Thank you, guys. Thank you for painting this picture. It's very important that we put our discussion here this afternoon in that broader context. And Guy, you will stay with us later at the end of the session. We have an opportunity also to ask questions and to engage a little bit in a discussion. So thank you for that contribution. I invite you now to see another short video. And that is on how cutting-edge technology helps governments to better understand greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector. How can we fight climate change? If we don't know where greenhouse gases are really coming from. Governments around the world are making serious commitments to reduce their national emissions. But to do that effectively, decision makers need to know the exact amounts and origins of the different gases being released in their region. A cutting-edge scientific technique is now giving governments and industries this data. Scientists are using something called stable isotopes to fingerprint each gas present in a sample of air and trace its source. This allows the authorities to target their climate policies to the biggest polluters and not miss any problem areas. Such indisputable data reveals the reality of emission sources and helps authorities build local support for focused climate action. The International Atomic Energy Agency is working with a world meteorological organisation to help countries perform these measurements and generate the data needed. The IAEA and the WMO are setting up regional centres to analyse the data received and teach scientists how to apply this technique in their home countries. Because the air in each country will tell a different story and we can't solve a problem that we don't understand. We are back at our event dear participants. This event is about climate adaptation but it is also about how nuclear science contributes to better climate science. Now we are going to talk about emissions from the agricultural sector and how these can be accurately scored sourced by isotopic techniques. I am joined for this second session by Professor Christoph Müller who is the director at the Institute of Plant Ecology at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen, Germany and he is also a professor of soil science at University College in Dublin. Thank you Christoph for joining us here for this event. I would like to ask you what are the main conditions including of course related to climate change that are affecting greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector? Yes Martin, thank you very much for inviting me here. I think first of all we need to know that when we talk about greenhouse gases we talk about the three carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. I think what we also should know is that agricultural ecosystems they can store huge amounts of carbon and they can be potentially very helpful to mitigate but the main greenhouse gases we are dealing with in agriculture that are methane and nitrous oxide and if we put them together we have approximately 15% of global warming related to these gases. Where do they come from? They are mainly of microbiological origin and as we know biological systems they are generally affected by temperature, by carbon dioxide perhaps even by large N-nitrogen applications, fertilizer applications and of course what we also found is that they are affected by future climatic conditions. What I mean by that is for instance extreme weather events droughts, heat, flooding all of that what we experienced this year and these are the conditions actually when the CO2 fertilization effect that is basically what we thought originally that plants they will pick up all the additional carbon dioxide where this CO2 fertilization effect will not compensate the yield loss and I think that is critical because then we are talking about food security and endangering this one on a worldwide scale and on top of it we also diminish then the ability of carbon storage in our soils. So giving what you just said with the experience that you have in research and also in the practice in the agricultural sector which agricultural management options are available to actually decrease the emissions of greenhouse gases. Yeah, thanks. I think there are basically two aspects we need to consider here I mean this whole session is dedicated to climate smart agriculture and traditionally as we know agriculture has been targeted towards productivity increase ignoring the negative impacts on the environment and that is exactly what CSA or Climate Smart Agriculture actually takes on because it considers both global food security but also reduced environmental impacts. Therefore I think it's absolutely essential that we kind of call on CSA techniques to achieve climate mitigation and adaptation. Okay, I mean we do not have time enough to cover all of the aspects that are part of it but they could include nutrient management they could include conservation agriculture double climatic resilient cropping systems agroforestry was already done in Africa that is sort of the first aspect and I think once we actually achieve this increase with CSA techniques then we have also existing agricultural systems to basically allow us to protect diverse and carbon-rich ecosystems from land use change and I think this is equally important I think we already heard that here at COP26 that for instance wetlands they only cover 6% of the earth but they contain more than 30% of the carbon and in our opinion it's absolutely crucial to protect these very valuable carbon-rich ecosystems from further degradation. Christoph, so you were talking about climate smart agriculture I'm working at the IEA which is the International Atomic Energy Agency so how would you say that nuclear techniques and nuclear technologies can be helpful or can play a role in climate smart agriculture what information do isotopes for example provide to help in identifying the origin of greenhouse gas emissions? Yeah I think this little film we saw earlier on already gives us a little taste here what we need to realize that these greenhouse gas emissions coming from soils, from agricultural systems that are based on elemental cycling and there is not only a single process that is responsible here but there are a whole array of processes and I think if we really want to develop effective mitigation options, adaptation strategies then we need to know where the greenhouse gases are coming from and that is where isotopic techniques come in because I think with the application of stable isotopes like 13C, 15N, all of that what we heard in that little video there we can trace the individual greenhouse gas production processes and that puts us into a position where we can kind of derive actual mitigation strategies absolutely to the point and I think that is where the power of stable isotopes come in mentioned the precision of these techniques is one of the big advantages over conventional ways of assessing greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector so okay now maybe the most difficult question for you here Christoph how can local communities and farmers in developing countries adopt these kind of climate smart technology packages is it not too expensive, is it not too sophisticated what we are talking about here how can we integrate these kind of things into the daily activities of communities and farmers yeah I mean we are usually doing basic science as you know but this is a little bit of a tricky question but I think if we want to deal with food security and enable food security that has to be seen in the socio-economic aspect and we already heard that from our first speaker we need to know the climatic and the local conditions to more or less derive targeted management options and farmers that could be nowadays informed by all kinds of things like even remote sensing we have a lot of farmers knowledge that dates back from centuries and recent papers even showed that they know quite a lot how to deal with this that means I think with the onset of this modern technology we can feed to the individual farmer exactly the knowledge he needs to know to kind of put these management practices into practice he doesn't need to know about isotopes he needs to know about what we get out of these kind of research for him to help him in his management yeah I think Christoph that is a very good answer we need to translate science and facts into something that farmers and communities can actually relate to can take up somehow but for that also it needs appropriate policies in the countries how and this is my last question to you how can the data and the facts and the science that we are talking about here can translate somehow into let's say into policymaking and then go down and trickle down into the practices and maybe changed practices for the farming communities yeah I think our first bigger guy here already gave us a taste on this one we need considering all these what we said before we need targeted policies no doubt about this we need to know the current state of the country we need to know what kind of soils do they have where do they do their cropping what are for instance the climatic conditions and more importantly what is basically the protection for this country in terms of the climate but also population dynamics all of that kind of determines food security and for that one I think we need to get together I mean it cannot only be one institute one grouping we need to more or less have a holistic approach on this one where science comes in where policy makers come in to derive the real policies that are really making a change and I think we're able to do this with the help of UN organizations like the IAEA and others thank you very much Christopher for being with us and for also staying with us still during this event before we proceed with the next speaker let us take a look at the next video which is about zoonotic diseases there is an important linkage here between climate change and zoonotic diseases so let us watch finally defeat COVID-19 and to be prepared for the next it was a video about zoonotic diseases and climate change and that is our topic also here for our next session now that we are better acquainted with zoonosis of which we were also made painfully aware during the COVID-19 pandemic let us analyze it from an unusual but quite relevant perspective and that is the perspective of climate change I'm glad to welcome as a speaker Dr. Norbert Novotny who is an expert at the animal production and health section at the joint FAO IEA center of nuclear techniques in food and agriculture and he will shed more light on this very important topic Norbert welcome to this event and let me just ask you the first question and that is how can climate change influence the emergence or the reemergence of zoonotic diseases I know it's a very broad question but you are the expert on this so please help us to understand Hi Martin, hi everyone many thanks for your kind invitation to speak on this occasion well 75% of all new diseases in humans come from the animal world so they are zoonosis as we saw a little bit in the small film so what about now climate change how can that influence well, a lot climate change can influence the emergence of new zoonotic diseases of new epidemics and even of new pandemics a lot and how does that happen I just want to give you one small example but actually it's not that small let's think about vectors there are many zoonotic diseases transmitted by vectors vectors like mosquitoes biting midges or ticks just to give you examples of such diseases there's nine Dengi Japanese antiphalitis Zika Rift Valley fever to tell just a few of them or tick-borne diseases like tick-borne antiphalitis virus or crime and congo hemorrhagic fever virus and when I talk about these infections the vectors through climate change especially through the global warming aspect of the climate change they move northwards and for example in Europe we have now many mosquito species but also tick species which have been known 10 years ago 20 years ago only in the Mediterranean region and now we have them in Central Europe and they are moving on further north and if the vectors are there then also the diseases might come so it could happen and we had already small full size of that therefore for example Dengi or Chikungunya out of Tonya's local outbreaks we saw them already in part of Italy northern Italy southern France and due to climate change especially global warming that could continue in a very bad way thank you Norbert so I mean how do nuclear techniques and that is what we are talking about here how can they contribute to the diagnosis and ultimately also to the control of animal and zoonotic diseases well if you look now in diagnostics we do not really think that much on nuclear techniques but actually if you go back in biomedicine everything started with nuclear techniques just give you two examples sequencing now everyone talks about sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 genomes the sequencing started with the radio labels nucleopunks and also in several other of diagnostics isopope techniques played initially a big role for example and this is still valid up to today rather in unisex play a big role and that continues until today so to give you a rather up to date example now also regarding COVID-19 everyone is talking about the vaccination so what can have vaccination to do with isopopic techniques it has because there are irradiated vaccines and these irradiated vaccines they have a big advantage because this irradiation especially gamma irradiation does not change the three-dimensional structure of the pathogen while when we are using chemical techniques or inactivation of this pathogen in order to produce vaccines then they may very well change the surface of the pathogen and as you know the pathogen needs to stay as it is in order that our immune system recognize the pathogen and produces both antibodies and specific immune cells so this is the gamma irradiation of vaccines is another application which is valid until today thank you Norbert my last question to you you have been involved also with the IAEA and the work that we are doing are there any examples of projects that you are aware of that the IAEA has implemented and how the IAEA is collaborating also with other partners in this field have been in the past numerous projects but I'm rather young within the IAEA but for example I will just give you one example the VETLAB the Veteran Diagnostics Laboratory Network is one very successful example it involves more than 150 laboratories in low income countries and they are collaborating with us and with the laboratories in Cybersport closely so SOPs are prepared for them and many other things where I'm involved and the director general mentioned it at the beginning is that one this is Zodiac Zodiac is the newest project it is together with the WHO with FAO and the OIE the World Organization for Animal Health and this Zodiac project the aim of it is that we detect new pathogens at the places where they originate so we are strengthening veteran laboratories in low income countries with knowledge with technology we develop new technology also with training they are invited to come to Cybersport and the Zodiac project has I think or will have in the future a huge impact not only strengthening detection and diagnostic capabilities but also making real-time decision and supporting these laboratories there for a timely intervention also if they find something it is verified by the IAEA laboratories in order to prevent zonotic diseases in the future I am already running out of time but this is to my opinion an amazing joint project across several UN organizations and with the help of this project we hope that no other COVID-19 pandemic will emerge in the near future thank you so much Norbert for this talk and for being with us at this event here today as we move on to the next session I would like to draw your attention to the introductory video that we have prepared for you and that video is on tackling drought techniques let's watch it a global project to track the journeys of specific raindrops is harnessing the power of big data to monitor water supplies for our thirsty planet every month for over 50 years researchers have gathered rainwater from stations like this in Vienna and hundreds of other sites around the world the unique isotopic signatures or fingerprints of each sample are recorded and this information is entered into a large online database where it's compared to similar data from surface water to see which raindrops end up in which rivers this large amount of data allows researchers to better understand the water cycle for example how, when and where water is recharged this information is key for managing water resources the data sets and maps are available to download for free and can be used in many ways for example in Costa Rica where they're helping the government identify key locations to protect groundwater so they can target conservation measures and avoid drought we now know which areas need special attention we know how to protect them to ensure water supply for now in the coming decades hopefully I'm turning to you thank you for being so patient and to be here today with me on the stage our next talk is dedicated to the importance of water we all know the climate change is impacting the freshwater resources and further exacerbating existing issues that are related to water scarcity I'm joined here by Professor Jory Miller who is the section head of the isotope hydrology section at the IEA and she will tell us more about isotope hydrology so Jody my first opening question to you is you know tracking the movement of water and especially groundwater is very important for obvious reasons but what techniques do exist and what are the benefits of what we call isotope hydrology thank you Martin and thanks everybody for attending and joining today you know from my perspective we've heard a lot about different types of techniques different types of isotope traces and these are really important traces important science that we need to do but one of the things that everybody understands we need water here it is how we can use it how long it's going to last and one of the really powerful things about isotope hydrology is you are not talking about a tracer that's been put into water we are not tracking a greenhouse gas we are not tracking pollution you are tracking the water molecule itself because we're looking at the isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen we have different oxygen isotopes we have different hydrogen isotopes when we look at the isotope hydrology we are looking at how those isotopes vary in different water molecules in different parts of the planet how can we use them to track the water where did it form what is the path it took how long will we have it how long has it been underground and these are really important fundamental questions that we need in order to address climate change how is it changing those parameters so this knowledge that you can gain on how to trace water which obviously is very important for countries who are suffering from droughts or from arid conditions caused by climate change how can this knowledge be transferred to local governments to communities what experiences do we have on that so at the international atomic energy agency we have what is called the technical cooperation project so I am a scientist I work in the isotope hydrology section we look at isotope hydrology tools and projects and science but we use the technical cooperation program to transfer that to member states to counterparts to people like you who are interested in this tool and want to know more about what it can do for your particular situation and scenario and that applies to all of the science that you see presented here all of the science that the international atomic energy agency is working on the nuclear sciences we can work with you through the technical cooperation projects to transfer that to you and to your counterparts so Judy this event here is about climate smart agriculture how does this thing that you were describing called the isotope hydrology how does it actually contribute to make agriculture smarter or to make agriculture more climate resilient so I am sure everybody here has been to lots of talks about hydrological models we use hydrological models to understand how the cycle is working why is there so much rain in one place and not much rain in another place how are those cycles, how are those patterns changing but one very important part of that cycle is not just the rain falling hitting the ground soaking in it's about the plants that intercept that rain how much water do they absorb and how much water do they give off how does this influence hydrological science and we've seen a lot of this if you change the types of plants in one area, if you cut the plants down if you remove them you change the water balance so we use isotope hydrology to work with farmers who are planting different types of crops, we can tell them how much water you have available which types of crops are the most appropriate ones to grow in this area and we heard previously some talk about with local communities those local farmers people who have indigenous knowledge, they know how their system works, they have farmed sustainably for centuries, we can use these tools to understand that science, their knowledge and we can use it to translate that to other areas where those that indigenous knowledge can add value and we can use that particularly in agricultural context because agriculture is a big user of water, it's one of the biggest users on the planet of fresh water so we need to be able to manage that in a better way and isotope hydrology really lets you do that I find it fascinating to see how modern science and nuclear technology can be combined actually with indigenous knowledge there is no contradiction here it's complementary it is and these kind of experiences and tools are available to all countries as you have said earlier because the IA has an outreach program has a technical cooperation program so this is not something only for rich countries who can afford expensive sophisticated technologies it is something that is accessible to all countries right Jodi? Yes the important thing to understand is that not all problems can be solved simply by high level science we need to take that science and we need to translate it to counterparts in member states and we need to learn from the science the science that they have inherently how can we interpret it and translate it into what we know as high level science we need to get the two to speaking to one another and we need to understand the ability to understand the ability into the future and I think that this is an important role that the international atomic energy agency can do into the future it is not just about nuclear sciences in terms of what people think of as nuclear it is about isotope techniques that we can use to help understand indigenous knowledge systems particularly with respect to agriculture in our next session from water to crops but before we do that let us take a look at the next video which is about the science behind boosting plant diversity around the world farmers fight the same battles battles against insects and other pests that not only damage their crops causing high losses but also transmit diseases to millions of livestock and humans at the same time many insects are becoming resistant to insecticides while consumers are more aware of the negative effects of pesticides on public health beneficial organisms and the environment since life first emerged on earth the diversity of living organisms has continuously evolved into a variety of species reaching the complexity that we see today what drives this massive variation? exposure to ionizing radiation which emanates naturally from the cosmos from the sun even from the earth itself causing living organisms to mutate most of these mutations will not survive but in rare cases beneficial mutations create novel varieties enabling them to survive in a wide range of environments over the millennia farmers have taken advantage of these naturally occurring mutations by selecting and propagating the most promising ones today we no longer have to wait for nature in the 1920s when researchers discovered that artificial ionizing radiation was capable of inducing beneficial mutations prop breeders were able to increase the frequency of spontaneous mutations the age of crop mutation breeding was born to induce desirable crop mutations seeds or other plant materials are exposed to ionizing radiation the seeds are then grown for 2 to 4 generations until the new but rare mutant characteristic can be identified once identified seeds from the selected plants are yet more generations to develop uniform breeding material advanced mutant lines are then tested in the field and if necessary crossed with existing varieties to retain their agronomic traits and then compared in national trials with existing varieties before finally being officially licensed and released to the farmers mutation breeding has generated thousands of novel crop varieties hundreds of crop species and billions of dollars in additional revenue delivering higher yields increased nutritional value resilience to the effects of climate change and tolerance to diseases mutation breeding is a fundamental and highly successful tool in the global efforts of agriculture to feed an ever increasing and nutritionally demanding population dear participants please join me in the presentation of our presentation today we will talk about mutation breeding and that is about developing crop varieties that are adapted to our biotic stresses and resistant to pests we have a very powerful tool for that purpose and I have here with me to tell us more about mutation breeding for climate adaptation with Mukushi Seeds in Zimbabwe and he was also awarded the Young Scientist award by the joint FAO IAA section division very recently so Prince let me turn to you and thank you very much for being with us here this afternoon now let me ask you first, mutation breeding sounds a little bit like something from a science fiction movie a bit scary is this science or is this fiction what exactly is mutation breeding? I imagine thanks for having me here yeah that's a very good question you know there is a confusion about mutation breeding I'm sure there are people who don't really understand what mutation breeding is but like we saw in the previous video we have spontaneous mutation that happen in nature and when it comes to mutation breeding we are no longer waiting for spontaneous mutation now we are trying to harness that mutagenesis power into a single dose of gamma ray on our targeted pool of material that we want to change to generate a heritable good change in terms of the trace that we want mutation breeding is pure straightforward science it's not fiction some people even confuse it with genetically modified organism it's not genetically modified organism because you are not introducing anything foreign you are just playing around with the gene pool of an already existing variety trying to enhance the trace that are there or probably to create new ones that are good and address the objectives of your program so with mutation breeding you are just bombarding and then what is left is for you to do selection like what George said previously not all problems are solved by high level science this is not even high level science it's just basic and it's even quite good for crops like legumes, cowpea, beans whereby the crossing is difficult and these crops have a narrow genetic base so when you do mutation breeding you are trying to broaden that base and you can actually do effective breeding Prince can you tell us a little bit about your own personal involvement with mutation breeding and the work that you have done in the past years which I believe also by the way has led to the release or the first release of the first mutant variety in Zimbabwe okay I started working on mutation breeding in 2007 when I was at crop breeding institute in the department of research and specialist services in the minister of agriculture I was coordinating mutation breeding and I was also an investigator in the project we were working with international atomic energy agents in regional projects called draft projects and also in national projects beginning in 2009 to 2020 so what I was doing is I was coordinating the project and we within I was coordinating the project on mutation breeding the objectives that we had we started working with cowpea in 2007 and then we scaled up to bamboo nuts in 2009 our objectives was to try to enhance the adaptive capacity of the cowpeas and these crops the pambaranas and the ground nuts to climate change the effects of climate change like drought and heat stress and also to improve on farmer preferred traits you know our farmers for example when it comes to cowpea they prefer varieties that are like seeded so we're also focusing on that then further to that I also participated in generation of knowledge I partnered with Professor Shemelis and Professor Guata in South Africa then we documented the possibility of the impact or the potential of using mutation breeding in two legumes cowpea and tepary bean in Africa then in 2016 I also partnered with Dr. Maguro Kosho and use it Dr. Kaspa and at UFS in South Africa Dr. Maraike we optimized the technique in developing in optimizing it to use it on maize to say we when you are doing mutation breeding in maize we try to optimize the use of gamma irradiation on maize on OPVs and input lines then also I got an expert to train other participants in the project with IAA and I did training in 2016 in Zimbabwe and also in 2017 in Cameroon training international participants general breeding and also the use of mutation breeding and currently right now I have a fellow from Namibia who is also learning mutation breeding and also general plant breeding so this is pieces of what I have done with mutation breeding over the past few years thank you very much Prince now considering the work that you have done and to support also that you have mentioned that came from the IAA would you say this has helped Zimbabwe and if so in what way has this benefited the Zimbabwean people definitely our collaboration with the international atomic energy agency has really helped Zimbabwe in different ways the first is the development and release of elite genotypes that we have done especially in cowpea and maize we have developed a lot of elite material which even lead to the release of the CBC5 the first mutant that the country has this avarite is a huge 20 percent than the land resist that the farmers were using and also it has got 10 percent seed size advantage compared to the parent like I said previously that farmers are interested in large seeded cowpeas then further to that we also benefited through training personally myself I have been trained twice by IAA in 2009 2010 with the IITA in Nigeria for six months and also in 2014-15 with IITA in Nigeria as well and a lot of our scientists also have been trained through the RAF projects the national projects in the form of also the fellowship projects then on top of that we managed to receive quite good equipment IA has got a strong budget in terms of training and equipment so we capacitated our institute at DRNSS with screen houses for drought screening for insect pests and also we have equipment that optimize and making the breeding process easier the phenotyping gadgets like the infrared thermometers then the taking data from the field using the digital tools and also we have the near infrared equipment for nutritional analysis and we optimized the maize breeding program in terms of making it modern using the backward printers yeah these are you know there's a huge list of what we got from IAA that I cannot list on this platform but we got a lot of equipment even laboratory equipment that we also benefited from the collaboration thank you very much Prince this is a fascinating insight that you gave us here and thanks for being with us at this event let me now turn to our next topic and as an introduction as always we have prepared a little video and in this video you will see using nuclear science to control pests let's see around the world farmers fight the same battles battles against insects and other pests that not only damage their crops causing high losses but also transmit diseases to millions of livestock and humans at the same time many insects are becoming resistant to insecticides while consumers are more aware of the negative effects of pesticides on public health, beneficial organisms and the environment the sterile insect technique is a type of birth control for insect pests that does harm beneficial insects and the environment millions of males of the insect pests are produced in special factories sterilize with radiation and then released into the field at regular intervals there they mate with wild females and as a result there are no offspring if sufficient sterile males are released the next generation will have fewer wild insect pests and the pest population can be controlled in situations of isolation such pests can eventually be eliminated furthermore if neighboring farmers collaborate and coordinate by releasing sterile insects together large areas can be effectively protected from such pests there is no environmental pollution and consumers can benefit from access to food without insecticide residues with proven success in controlling fruit fly and moth pests this technique is also being applied to livestock pests and is being developed for mosquitoes making an important contribution to food security and enabling countries to compete in global food trade so dear participants as you might have guessed the next topic is to talk about the management of insect pests where to welcome Professor Diana Perez Staples from the University Veracruzana in Xalapa Veracruz, Mexico Professor Staples is focusing on the challenges of the sterile insect technique and on the sexual performance of irradiated insects now Diana thank you very much for joining us and for being with us at this event can you explain to us and to our audience how the sterile insect technique actually works what exactly is that so thank you Martin very much for the invitation and the sterile insect technique as you saw in that brief video is the type of birth control for insects it's actually a very ingenious idea that has been around since the 1950s and it's been implemented in both developing and developed countries around the world so the SIT consists in mastering millions and millions of a target pest in these huge factories then they are irradiated with ionizing radiation in a way that makes them sterile then they're released in the areas where the wild females are in problematic areas where we have the pest and the irradiated sterile insects find the wild females they mate with them to be able to lay any fertile eggs and so in this way the populations are reduced and this technique the sterile insect has many advantages over conventional control methods it's environmentally friendly because it reduces the use of insecticides for example there's a documented case of the codling moth in Canada where it actually reduced the sale of pesticides by up to 96% so this is a very environmental friendly technique another important point about this technique is that it only targets the pest species so it doesn't introduce another insect into the population it doesn't introduce any non-native species into that ecosystem and the SIT can be used with other control methods for example such as biological control or bait stations or traps and when it is used as part of an area wide integrated pest management it's highly successful it's a clean technique it can be used to suppress to eradicate, to contain or even to prevent the establishment of pests So Diana as you have said SIT works with the irradiation technique basically can you explain you know is there a difference and if so what is the difference between SIT and let's say GMO processes where we hear also a lot of resistance sometimes from the public Sure so transgenic processes basically refer like to changing or to modify the genetic structure of the insect so you have to add genetic material or in some way change the genome of that insect so the sterile insect technique as it is supported by the IAA doesn't actually introduce any foreign genetic material into the population because it's the same pest species that is mass produced and then it's released it doesn't involve any genetic engineering and one another common misconception is that these insects for example are radioactive which they are not they're just irradiated in the similar sense as a medical product for example would need to be irradiated to become sterile so these insects you know when they are sterile when they're irradiated they're not transgenic in that sense or at least because they cannot reproduce they actually do not leave like a negative ecological footprint in the environment so it's slightly different from those other processes That was a very clear and a good explanation and we can destroy some myths with such an explanation and that is very much appreciated Can you give us maybe lastly now an example of how and where was successfully applied Sure so there are actually many fabulous examples of how XIT has been successfully applied and perhaps the public have not heard of these and some of these most important examples are for example the eradication of the screwworm fly in Libya, all of North America including Mexico, Central America the way down to Panama the screwworm fly is a major parasitic bullworm blooded animals including humans and now there's a permanent barrier of sterile insects over eastern Panama that protects all these pest free areas another good example of the XIT success is in the eradication of the set safe fly which as you know can transmit sleeping sickness and this has been eradicated from Zanzibar in Tanzania it's also been used against the pink bullworm which is a pest for cotton it's been eradicated in the southern US and northwest Mexico another example is in the melon fly which is one of Asia's terrible pests of vegetables and it's been eradicated in southern Japan specifically in Okinawa and there's other examples also of eradications using the sterile insect technique of the painted apple loft in New Zealand successful eradication stories of the Mediterranean fruit fly which is a fly species that attracts hundreds of different fresh fruits and vegetables and it's been eradicated from California from Chile it's also been used against the Queensland fruit fly to eradicate it from south Australia and Tasmania and it's been used to eradicate the cactus moth in Yucatan here in Mexico where its establishment would have been pretty devastating and those are just some examples of where it's been used for eradication but as I said before it can also be used samples of that but just to end I guess one of the most recent and I think wonderful examples of how this technique works is the recent eradication of the bedfly from the Dominican Republic so this after it was invaded into this country it was first reported in 2015 and as a result of the detection of this fly of this fly species there was a ban that was implemented on experts of fruits and vegetables and just during that year the Dominican Republic lost 40 million U.S. dollars so you can imagine the economic fallout from that and the government together with OIRSA, with FAIRO with IAEA, with the USDA they implemented SIT and in just two years they managed to eradicate the pest so really it's a technique that deserves a lot more attention given it's screened credentials and it can be very successful Thank you Diana this is indeed a very long and impressive list and it is not something that is happening in a laboratory only this is something that is happening in the real world with real benefits to countries and people as you have described it now very very briefly Diana because we are running a little bit out of time but can you say a few sentences about how the better management of these insect pests through the SIT actually is relevant for our discussion here at COP26 which is on climate change Sure, so the distribution of pest species and of vegetables and fruits are going to be impacted by climate change and it's probably going to make it even more difficult than what we actually have now so there's going to be a lot of previously inhospitable regions where now we're going to have the incursion of these pests so climate change productions predict and increase in the area that is vulnerable to all these arthropod invaders and to vector-borne diseases to these problems and SIT can definitely provide one of these solutions it's been found to be very successful particularly in developing countries and in islands that are very susceptible to food insecurity into climate change so I think it's a very good example of how we can use it to support these countries and to manage the geographical expansion of these pests Excellent, thank you Diana thanks so much for being with us here this afternoon so, dear audience, dear participants as we move on to the next topic let us have a look at food irradiation a technology that helps to combat climate change related food insecurity and again we have prepared a little video here with climate change insects are now moving into areas where previously they could not survive this means authorities must implement strict quarantine measures across international boundaries and within countries thanks to a treatment that has been used safely for more than 50 years countries are already in a position to deal with this threat the treatment is food irradiation initially used to ensure safety of high value spices, fish and meat food irradiation treatments are increasingly being used on fresh fruits and vegetables to prevent the spread of invasive insects higher temperatures and humidity of climate change also aid the growth of organisms such as bacteria or moulds that can cause food spoilage or food based illnesses and pressure on food supply chains and impacting food safety this makes the protective potential of food irradiation even more critical already several countries provide irradiated food rations during natural disasters when hygiene and cold storage are disrupted with the intergovernmental panel on climate change expecting crop yields to become more variable due to climate change some countries are considering using food irradiation to improve conservation of staple supplies such as wheat, rice and maize food irradiation calls for shining beams of energy such as x-rays, gamma rays or electron beams on to food because it destroys bacteria that can cause food poisoning it neutralizes insect pests in food consignments and prevents them from hitchhiking across boundaries it maintains food quality by destroying spoilage organisms or suppressing sprouting it protects packaged food from microbial and insect contamination food irradiation is not a panacea it will not resolve all climate related challenges to food security but it is playing an increasingly important role helping to ensure that all people have access to sufficient quality food to lead active and healthy lives participants with my next expert I will be talking about food irradiation food irradiation is important for food safety for the prevention of foodborne diseases for prolonging shelf life and for maintaining food quality and for minimizing waste all this is extremely relevant in the discussion of climate change of course and we will now learn from Professor Ilmi Heva-Juleje who is the additional director general for research and development and also a research professor for the industrial technology institute in Sri Lanka so Ilmi, thank you very much for joining us here this afternoon and I would like to ask you first how actually does food irradiation help to combat food insecurity and how is that related to climate change? Okay thank you for your kind introduction and I want from Sri Lanka first of all I would like to thank IAEA for organizing this valuable event and inviting me to represent Sri Lanka yes we all know that the impact of climate change and global warming can have negative effects on world food supply that means the production wastage food trade and finally food security we know that world population also increasing day by day and expected to increase the population in many countries will also aggravate the problem of this food insecurity apart from that climate change has significantly increased the food wastage and losses in some countries including my country Sri Lanka it has been estimated that post-hours losses of fruits and vegetables are high as 30 to 40% from the harvested crop so food irradiation can be used as an adaptive climate change strategy to address those losses if I explain it further pest and disease infestation are considered as main reasons for pre and post-hours crop losses so in previous speakers also you got to know from that food irradiation can be used for sterilization technology to decrease foodborne diseases then protect trade through effective sterilization of insect pests of economic importance the previous speaker clearly mentioned that how we can use this food irradiation technology to sterilize insects on the other hand food irradiation help to develop shelf-stable emergency rations for calamity victims that's also very much important to consider the climate change impacts therefore I believe that food irradiation technology could improve food security and help to combat food insecurity related climate change thank you very much Ilmi let me ask you this does the food once it is irradiated is it radioactive is it dangerous then to actually eat it no actually it's a misconception we all know that food we eat help to grow us active and help to lead healthy life most of the food we eat are highly perishable and have very short shelf life therefore we need to use different processing techniques to increase the shelf life while preserving the nutritional quality so food irradiation is a non-thermal food preservation technique it's a preservation technique but we don't use thermal energy there we use radiation energy to improve the safety and extend the shelf stability of food by eliminating the growth of microorganisms and insects so as we saw in the video clearly food can be irradiated using gamma irradiation and X-rays and O-electron beam technology and the most common technology is the gamma irradiation technology the beauty of this technology is it is gentle on food but not on microorganisms okay the trick is if you select the correct dosage it makes minimal change to the nutritional quality and texture and taste of the food and more importantly the answer to your question the direct answer it will not make food radioactive it's a misconception some people think that food irradiation irradiated food has some radioactive materials it is not true you don't have you don't get any residue of radioactive things in irradiated food so you don't have to worry about that you can eat irradiated food very nicely okay I'm very relieved to hear that Ilmi thank you for explaining it so well now the IPCC is saying that one third of the food that is being produced is actually wasted at the same time farmers are facing drought and food productivity is by climate change now how would you say you know does food irradiation help in this kind of scenario that we are facing yeah actually IPCC yeah the world health of the world population is projected to reach maybe 9.8 billion by 2050 okay however most of the countries have to limited area land area and also limited resources for this growing population the post harvest losses of fruits and vegetables in some series in many developing as I told you before it's very high as maybe nearly 50% in some countries so it's really important to reduce these prevalent losses and save the harvested crop rather than increase in the yield by taking attempts to introduce high yield in varieties because if you reduce the post harvest losses you can reduce rather than increase in the yield in this concern food irradiation can play a major role to extend the shelf life of some row and process food items delay in ripening of fruits reduce food losses especially onion garlic like commodities we can delay the sprouting using food irradiation technology and as I told you before that due to extreme climate change events people displaced because of drought food etc and food irradiation can help to make emergency food reference so those are stable food products so those foods have very long shelf life you can keep those food maybe six months even at ambient temperature so those foods are still alive food so those food can reach to wherever the people in this disaster areas and also these food are very good for the security forces who help these calamity victims so those irradiated emergency food versions can be not only for calamity victims but can be used for the security forces who help the calamity victims. Thank you very much Imli my last question to you is for many countries food imports are very important so food trade is a very big economic activity how would you say is food irradiation supporting trade food trade and what is the relevance of irradiation in the context of food trade Yes as you said Martin yes food trade is important for food security so ensuring the supply of quality and safe food addressing the temporary storage shortages due to floods storms or drought is very much important in this concern food storage and shelf life extension will be a major role in the trade sector because we have to select the best possible techniques to store food and distribute them to the people in a safe manner so if I take an example of storage life extension of garlic and potato like commodities there are chemicals to control sprouting and extend shelf life through many maybe these if you use these chemicals it may leave some toxic residues which could harm to people and also to the environment but if you use irradiation other than using these chemicals it doesn't leave any residue and I think in this video we saw how irradiation can be used against insect pests so right now lot of countries are using irradiation as a quarantine treatment to prevent insect pests from spreading and climates are changing and insect can be bred in places where they couldn't bear before so we need to stop these pests spreading through trade because sometimes there are some quarantine issues for example that irradiation securities practice in Vietnam for exporters to USA and 20 million US dollars per year by using this technology by using the irradiation technology so if it wasn't for food irradiation the food wouldn't be traded so because of these quarantine issues so in that case actually the food irradiation can very much important in food trade very good very good thank you so much Hilmi thank you for joining us at this event here and with that I will turn now to our last speaker for part one of our event so I'm pleased to invite Dr. Ramajitha Thabo who is the regional director of the International Crop Research Institute for the semi arid tropics in west and central Africa and he is based in Bamako Mali he will enlighten us about the frontiers of agricultural research on climate smart agriculture and he will also provide some overall concluding remarks for our session for our for the part one of our event Ramajitha the floor is yours Thank you very much Martin for giving me this opportunity to conclude the session the very useful session I really enjoyed all the speakers who came before me so I will make a few remarks as you said and get some kind of feedback from colleagues so dear Martin dear COP26 participant fellow panelists and dear audience watching us online from across the world greetings I'm really honoured to join you at this very important and interesting event. I have been involved in agricultural research for many years I have also been contributing to IPCC reports on this subject and was honoured to be a member of the IPCC that produced the fourth assessment report that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the former US President Mr. Al Gore as a cropping system agronomist with a lifelong passion for transforming scientific and evidence into real life solutions to improve the quality of life for farmers across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia I am a firm believer in building mutually beneficial long-term relationship with farmers, donors and policy makers to deploy sustainable solutions and I have to tell you we have been ringing the alarm bells for quite a while now as we have noted in several IPCC reports Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents in particular and in particular the agricultural sector which is predominant for hundreds of millions of farmers the situation as we see it is getting worse day by day by the interaction of multiple stresses occurring at various levels and low the abductive capacity in the agricultural sector what we have heard at the IAEA event on adaptation and climate smart agriculture is in fact at the core of climate action agricultural research on climate smart agriculture is covering lots of different topics my institution ICRISAT hosts the climate change agriculture and food security C-CAPS research program of the CGI the conducts agriculture research on various topics of climate smart agriculture I will just highlight a few numbers of food in Africa are more vulnerable to climate change because of their comparatively limited ability to invest in more adapted institution technologies and increasing climate risk therefore the way the food system or manage needs to be urgently changed if the goal is to achieve food security and sustainable development more quickly review approach based on selected examples and experiences from ground implemented projects across Africa such as Ghana, Senegal Mali, Burkina Faso in West Africa Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania in East Africa was used and the lessons that we have learned from this ground implementation of climate smart agriculture were instrumental to inform the action areas of the food system transformation framework as follows one the climate smart village approach to generate knowledge on climate smart agriculture technologies and practices for their scaling up is a very good approach and effective approach the use of climate information services to better manage climate variability and extremes is also critical and the science policy interfacing to mainstream climate smart agriculture into agricultural development policies and plans is also paramount there is now an international consensus that the design and implementation of climate change responses must consider gender specific differences in the capacity to adapt to and climate change and indeed there is a strong gender inequality in access to resources and opportunities in agricultural sector resulting in gender productivity gaps hence there is a need to really look at mainstreaming gender into climate smart agriculture I can go on and on but I think because of time constraints those are the few examples I wanted to highlight and share with you surely the world needs to cut down greenhouse gas emissions and we are all hopeful that this COP26 will take the Paris commitment further let's assume that the whole world all the countries will stop emitting today and will achieve zero emissions tomorrow we will have to adapt we still have to adapt our crops and our food system to a climate that has already changed and in this endeavor we have to use all the tools that science offers us nuclear science and technology as we have heard in tangible examples from Zimbabwe Mexico, Sri Lanka and across the world offer so much the work that you do on water resources on improved crops on insect pests and zoonosis at the atomic level has direct impact on the global level as an African and as an agronomist I urge the IAEA to spread the use of such technologies so we can indeed overcome the challenge that we face together I thank you Ramanjita, thank you so much for your encouragement and for your insights and for the fascinating topics that you and your colleagues are working on when it comes to the frontiers of the agricultural research in the context of climate smart agriculture dear participants we could witness here in part one of our event interesting contributions from experts who are talking about different nuclear applications and technologies that are relevant in the context of climate science and climate adaptation I would like to draw your attention to a new publication that just came out which is this one here this publication offers a comprehensive overview of the different technologies and techniques it also contains a lot of good examples on how these technologies were applied in real-case scenarios and it is kind of a compendium a reference document that you can refer to if you are interested to dive deeper and to learn more about this topic this publication also contains a vision an objective and a way forward on how the IAEA and other organizations can support member states to introduce these kind of technologies in their efforts to adapt to the changing climate in that context it is also relevant for your NDCs the national determined contributions that you are that you are preparing so with that I would like to conclude the first part of our event thank you for being with us but please please be aware that there is a second part of this event which will commence very shortly it will focus on an equally interesting and fascinating area which is the oceans meaning ocean change and how that relates to climate change now in the short break that we are going to have a few minutes break we will show a short film immediately we will start afterwards to hear about the crucial role that nuclear technologies can play in ocean science