Unfold Zero: From the NPT to the UN Summit of the Future: Cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments

Posted: 22nd August 2024

In an article From the NPT to the UN Summit of the Future: Cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments published today (August 22), the international Move the Nuclear Weapons Money Campaign reports on recent and current actions by legislators and civil society organizations to cut nuclear weapon budgets, end investments in the nuclear arms race, and shift these resources to better address planetary emergencies including climate change, threats to biodiversity, growing poverty and an increase in the number and intensity of armed conflicts.

Actions advancing this include two appeals to the 2024 Non-Proliferation Treaty Prep Com(July 22-August 2) and the  UN Summit of the Future (September 22-23), a Peoples Pact for the Future (also directed to the Summit of the Future), and a recent letter from US congress members to the Secretary of Defence challenging the new ICBM replacement program.  

Turn Back the Doomsday Clock

On July 23, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer presented a parliamentary appeal ‘Turn Back the Doomsday Clock’ to a plenary session of the NPT Prep Com with nine concrete proposals directed to both the NPT Prep Com and the UN Summit of the Future. One of the proposals calls on governments to “cut nuclear weapons budgets and public investments in the nuclear weapons industry, and to re-purpose these resources to instead support public health, peace, climate stabilization and sustainable development.”

More than 80 parliamentarians from 35 legislatures endorsed the appeal, including members of foreign affairs and defence committees; parliamentary delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, NATO Parliamentary Assembly and OSCE Parliamentary Assembly; former Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Disarmament; and others.

Pursuing peace and nuclear disarmament through our Common Humanity

An appeal from faith-based organizations and leaders, entitled Pursuing Peace, Security and Nuclear Disarmament through our Common Humanity, was also presented at the NPT plenary session on July 23 by Ayleen Roy, a member of the Transnational working group on faith and values based perspectives. The appeal, which was endorsed by more than 80 faith-based organizations and an additional 180 faith and values based leaders and individuals, highlights principles common to all the world’s major religious and faith-based traditions that are relevant to peace, security and nuclear weapons.

Citing the faith-based principle of social responsibility, the appeal notes that “The €90 billion equivalent spent each year on nuclear weapons development, production and deployment is draining resources (human and financial) that are required to eliminate world poverty and achieve the SDGs” and encourages “States to acknowledge their social responsibility by ending investments in nuclear weapons and re-purposing these investments to address basic human needs.”

Peoples Pact for the Future

In preparation for the UN Summit of the Future, civil society organizations from around the world, cooperating through the facilitation of the Coalition for the UN We Need, have released a Peoples Pact for the Future. Amongst other things, the Peoples Pact calls for a commitment to be made at the Summit “to channel domestic and other funds currently utilized for weapons—including nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction—to peaceful use such as environmental protection, sustainable development, peacemaking, rehabilitation, restorative justice, reparations, and building a culture of peace.”

US Congress-members challenge the new ICBM program

On June 24, US Senator Ed Markey organized a joint letter from NWAC members to the Secretary of Defense, challenging the US Sentinel Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) replacement program on both financial and policy grounds. The legislators wrote to “remind the DoD that the American people have not granted them a blank check to pursue wasteful, unnecessary programs. As a varied group, our positions on the overall nuclear posture may vary, but we all share a common commitment to preventing government waste, avoiding dangerous nuclear escalation, and promoting peace.”

There are growing calls amongst security experts and civil society organizations for a retirement of all ICBMs in order to cut the bloated nuclear weapons budget and reduce the risks of nuclear war. See, for example, Slash the Pentagon Budget in Half & Abolish ICBMs: Dan Ellsberg on How to Avoid Nuclear Armageddon.

However, these efforts are opposed by a powerful nuclear arms industry lobby and the many legislators whom they support in the US congress, including members of the the bi-partisan Missile Defence Caucus. For more on this, see From the NPT to the UN Summit of the Future: Cut nuclear weapons budgets and investments. Yours sincerely
UNFOLD ZERO