 Increasing CO2 emissions and not just polluting the atmosphere. The oceans which absorb around a quarter of these emissions are suffering too. Once in the water, the carbon dioxide is transformed into acid, leading to a process known as ocean acidification. This is not just threatening the existence of some marine species, but also the communities who depend on fishing and seafood for their income and diet. At the IAEA's laboratories in Monaco, a team of scientists is studying the impact of this process on marine life and seafood safety. The carbonates are in fact the main building blocks that are used by many marine organisms to build their skeleton. So when you decrease the availability of these carbonates, that's what happens when you increase the acidity, the organism can no longer have access to this carbonate to build their skeleton. And so it's reducing the skeleton and many organisms depend on this skeleton to survive, to grow, to reproduce. Michel and his team use radioisotopes as tracers. They work with the different levels of acidity predicted for the next 100 years. One experiment studies how oysters and mussels will have problems to form their shells, a process known as calcification. Another test saw increased acidity will influence the way fish absorb the toxins commonly found in water and how this could affect the people who eat such seafood. In Ville-Franche-sur-Mer, in the south of France, marine biologists from the Oceanographic Laboratory are collecting samples of water, plants and sea organisms. They've been doing this since 2006 to monitor the rapidly increasing levels of acidity. This is one of many organizations that work together with the IAEA in this field. The IAEA, obviously, is an expert laboratory for the use of radioisotopes. And there is, for example, one radioisotope that is absolutely critical for ocean acidification research that is calcium-45 that we use to measure calcification. We don't have here the facilities to use calcium-45, so we are partnering with the IAEA in Monaco and we do joint experiments on various calcifiers, shells, mollusks and corals to understand the effects of ocean acidification. In 2008, Monaco's Prince Albert joined forces with the IAEA to issue a declaration on ocean acidification. The aim was to raise awareness of this issue, especially beyond the science community. I think it was high time for us not only to get the stamp of approval by scientists from 26 different countries as to what the dangers are, first of all, to better identify the issues and to kind of orient the research toward a better understanding of the mechanics and the dynamics of ocean acidification. In many coastal areas around the world, the fishing industry is vital for the economy and food security. If a species dies out, the other organisms that feed on it suffer too. This means there's less to catch and less to eat. The IAEA and its partners are trying to discover which species are more vulnerable or resistant to ocean acidification, so that countries can use this knowledge to address the conditions in a more acidic ocean.