(As prepared for delivery)
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to be your guest at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.
The Institute is highly regarded throughout this region, and beyond, for the high quality of its research.
New Zealand has been a Member State of the International Atomic Energy Agency since the Agency was founded in 1957. Your country is an important partner in many areas of our work.
The IAEA is best known as the world’s so-called “nuclear watchdog,” which helps to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
We do this by implementing safeguards, which essentially means to verify that all nuclear material and activities in a country are in peaceful purposes.
But we also make important contributions to helping countries achieve their development goals.
Nuclear science and technology have numerous peaceful applications which can help countries to reduce poverty and hunger, improve energy supplies, treat diseases such as cancer and respond to climate change – and much more. I summarise our very broad mandate as Atoms for Peace and Development.
Developing countries are more and more interested in the benefits of nuclear technology. This is reflected in the membership of the IAEA, which now stands at 168 countries and continues to grow.
Today, I will focus on some of the main ways in which nuclear technology contributes to sustainable development.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Birth control for insects might seem an unlikely place for me to begin my remarks.
But it is an example of very practical work by the IAEA which is of great importance to farmers who grow fruit and vegetables, or raise livestock. It can save countries many millions of dollars per year. It also enables farmers to export their products to markets abroad and improve their living standards, and that of their communities.
The IAEA makes available something called the sterile insect technique. The first step is to sterilise male insect pests, such as tsetse flies or fruit flies, by applying radiation. Then, these sterilised males are released in a targeted location. They mate with wild females, but do not give any offspring. Over time, the wild population declines and the insect pest is either greatly reduced, or completely eliminated.
Use of the technique in the region has helped to control the Queensland fruit fly, a major pest that can destroy fruit and vegetable crops.
The IAEA is presently working with the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research on using the sterile insect technique against various types of moths which also threaten crops.
The sterile insect technique is environmentally friendly, because none of the sterilised insects remain in the environment, and helps, in the long-term, to reduce the use of pesticides.
The IAEA also makes a direct contribution to increasing food production by developing new varieties of staple food crops such as rice and barley that are resistant to drought and other adverse conditions.
This is done by using what we call radiation-induced mutation techniques. In nature, mutation occurs thanks to the radiation coming from the cosmos or the earth.
But, by applying radiation, it is possible to accelerate this mutation process and develop new varieties of crops faster than through traditional plant breeding methods. This is very different to transgenetic approaches, or gene-splicing, as it builds on a natural process.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me mention a few other examples of our work with New Zealand.
We have worked with the University of Otago on food traceability and authenticity. This is especially important in New Zealand with the export of honey. Plants have a distinct “isotopic fingerprint”, which comes from the make-up of the region in which they grow. Nuclear technology allows us to read and verify these fingerprints, and demonstrate where honey originally came from.
We have cooperated with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research on using isotopic techniques to counter land degradation and conserve soil.
A long-standing collaboration with the University of Auckland involves research on preventing or mitigating chronic diseases. Such collaboration has assisted projects to allow better understanding and treatment of nutritional and obesity issues, as well as diabetes.
New Zealand is taking the lead in a regional IAEA project on monitoring air pollution. Your country has also provided funding for an important project on the management and development of groundwater resources shared by a number of countries in the Sahel region of Africa.
These are very diverse projects. What they have in common is that they all involve the use of nuclear or isotopic techniques.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As I mentioned, cancer control is a particular focus of the IAEA’s work.
It is estimated that, by 2030, over 21 million people will be diagnosed with cancer every year, 13 million of whom will die from the disease.
Some 60 percent of all new cancer cases will be recorded in developing countries, where around 70 percent of cancer-related deaths will occur.
This is a great human tragedy. Many of those patients could be treated effectively if they lived in countries where modern cancer diagnosis and treatment facilities are available.
Unfortunately, many developing countries lack both equipment and the trained medical and technical experts to treat cancer effectively. In Africa alone, there are 28 countries which do not have a single radiotherapy machine.
The IAEA, working with partners such as the World Health Organization, helps countries to devise comprehensive cancer control programmes. We help them to establish nuclear medicine and radiation oncology facilities and we support the education and training of specialized health professionals.
Here in the Asia and Pacific region, for example, we have helped countries to build human resources and deploy new equipment. Our technical support focuses on nuclear medicine and imaging technology, and radiotherapy.
The IAEA also supports e-learning through initiatives such as our Human Health Campus and Virtual University for Cancer Control. These platforms offer accessible, high-quality online training, free of charge, in areas such as radiotherapy, medical physics, nutrition and medical physics.
This means that doctors and medical physicists, for example, can receive expert training without leaving home for costly trips abroad which their countries can ill afford.
When world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals last year, they committed themselves for the first time to reducing early deaths from chronic diseases, including cancer, by one third over the next 15 years.
I believe this is an achievable goal if governments, organisations such as the IAEA, our key partners, and non-governmental organisations, work together.
We have achieved a lot in the cancer field over the years and many lives have been saved. But the need is enormous and much more needs to be done.
Improving cancer control in developing countries will remain a high priority for the Agency and for me personally.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me mention briefly that the IAEA is able to respond quickly to health emergencies in Member States.
Two years ago, we helped countries in West Africa to deal with an outbreak of the Ebola virus by providing diagnostic kits, laboratory supplies and technical advice.
This enabled the affected countries to use nuclear-derived technologies to quickly diagnose the spread of Ebola and related viruses.
We are now adopting a similar approach to help countries in Latin America and the Caribbean respond to the Zika virus.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The IAEA’s 168 Member States benefit from access to our nuclear applications laboratories near Vienna. These are unique within the UN system.
They offer training to scientists, support research in human health, food and other areas, and provide analytical services to national laboratories.
The labs are more than 50 years old and a long-overdue modernisation is now underway. I am grateful to New Zealand for its contribution to this important project.
New Zealand has also supported the IAEA Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre, which we established in Monaco in 2013. It uses nuclear and isotopic techniques to study biological processes affected by ocean acidification.
We are conducting a major research project on the impact of ocean acidification in fisheries. We have also launched international studies to address the effects of climate change on polar and mountainous regions.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The best known peaceful application of nuclear technology is nuclear power.
The Fukushima Daiichi accident five years ago put a global spotlight on nuclear safety. Safety is a national responsibility, but the IAEA brings countries together to agree international nuclear safety standards and learn from each other’s experience.
Thanks to the measures taken by Member States, in particular the strengthening of the safety culture, nuclear power is now safer, throughout the world, than it was before Fukushima Daiichi.
Around 30 countries are considering introducing nuclear power, on top of the 30 countries that already have it.
The reasons why these countries include nuclear power in their energy mix are quite often the need to reduce the emission of climate change gas, achieve economic development or maintain economic prosperity, and improve energy security.
I would like to make it clear that it is up to each country to decide whether or not to introduce nuclear power. The IAEA does not attempt to influence countries’ decisions. If countries opt for nuclear power, our job is rather to help them use it safely, securely and sustainably.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me mention briefly that nuclear security is an increasingly important part of the work of the IAEA. This involves helping countries to prevent nuclear and other radioactive materials from falling into the hands of terrorist groups.
The IAEA plays the leading role as the global platform for strengthening nuclear security.
New Zealand has been a strong supporter of our nuclear security activities, for which I am very grateful.
We have trained thousands of police, border guards and other officials around the world in nuclear security. We have given countries more than 3,000 instruments for detecting nuclear and other radioactive material.
The next IAEA International Conference on Nuclear Security will take place at ministerial level in Vienna in December. It will consider ways of strengthening the nuclear security framework globally.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have stuck to my brief and concentrated on the contributions which nuclear science and technology can make to development.
I have focussed on just a few aspects of the IAEA’s work in these areas as covering all of them would take too long.
I have not gone into the important work which we do in nuclear non-proliferation. But I would be happy to take a few questions on any aspect of our activities.
Thank you.