On October 28, UNFOLD ZERO joins with a number of other organizations/initiatives in an event The UN and the Climate – Nuclear Disarmament Nexus.
The event will explore the connections between the climate and nuclear disarmament issues, and build cooperation between movements and campaigns pushing for progress at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) in November 2021 and the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference being held at the UN in January 2022.
Climate change and nuclear weapons pose two existential threats to humanity and are two key issues for the United Nations. There are strong links between the two issues:
- The impacts of climate change emissions and the use of nuclear weapons are trans-border and transgenerational. They cannot be contained in either time nor space – impacting globally and far into the future.
- Neither issue can be resolved solely at national levels, but require international cooperation and the building of common security.
- Climate change stimulates conflicts that could spill over into nuclear conflict, while any use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict would create catastrophic climatic consequences, compounding the current impact of climate change emissions.
- The human and financial resources currently devoted to nuclear weapons are desperately required to instead be invested in assist carbon emission reduction and climate stabilisation.
The October 28 event will will look at key initiatives and United Nations processes on climate protection/stabilization, nuclear risk reduction and disarmament, the connections between these issues and the ways in which legislators and civil society can make an impact. Click here to register for the event. Click here for the event flyer.
Speakers include: Maria Espinosa, Member of the World Future Council and President of the 73rd UN General Assembly; Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr. Chair of the Global Security Institute Nonpartisan Security Group and Head of the United States Delegation to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference; Renato Belfiore and Natália Vicente, from the World’s Youth for Climate Justice which has a campaign to take the issue of climate change to the International Court of Justice’ Tzeporah Berman, Founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative; and Vanda Proskova, Co-convenor of UNFOLD ZERO and Youth Fusion and Co-founder of NoFirstUse Global.
The event will include a presentation of Protect People and the Planet: Appeal for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World, which calls, amongst other things, for cutting budgets and investments in the nuclear weapons industry and reallocating/reinvesting these to climate protection and carbon emission reduction.
It will also include the release by NoFirstUse Global of an Appeal to nuclear armed states to adopt policies never to initiate nuclear war (no-first-use policies) and other nuclear risk reduction measures when they meet at the NPT Review Conference in January next year.