By Kerul Dyer

Yesterday, September 26, marked the International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Events included high level United Nations meetings and the recent addition of three additional countries that ratified their participation and became state parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). That brings the total number of signatories to 94, with 73 states who have fully adopted the ban. This year’s event drew attention to the heightened risk of nuclear weapon use in modern warfare, heard from survivors of nuclear bombing.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterras warned the world that “not since the worst days of the Cold War has the spectre of nuclear weapons cast such a dark shadow.” He urged world leaders to support disarmament and to take substantive steps to reduce the risk of another nuclear disaster.

“There should be no place for these devices of death in our world,” he said

Also, this week at the United Nations member countries agreed to the Pact for Our Future, which identified common ground in an effort to support sustainability and contained limited language on reducing the risk of nuclear disasters. As the US braces for a historic Presidential election this fall, neither candidate has been pressed to address the topic, with the exception of vague remarks amid heightened tensions – and threats for their use by Russia in the war in Ukraine.

Another, related event marked a dark danger just hours before the UN commemorated the International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. On Wednesday, China conducted a major test when it launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean. The test marked the latest in a series of actions by multiple countries waving their batons of nuclear technologies and sent a signal amid rising tensions between warring nuclear states including Russia, the US, and Israel.

The US Department of Defense now has a plan and a budget to update their nuclear weapons arsenal in the next several years, posing an unparalleled risk for the future. One proposal includes an overhaul of the current US Anti-Balistic Missile system with the new Sentinel ICBM System. The original estimated cost of this project was $77.7 billion dollars. As of August 2024, the estimate stands at $140.9 billion. This is a figure that may increase during budget negotiations after the November elections. 

The urgency to change course and prevent the proliferation of more nuclear weapons cannot be overstated. In our increasingly volatile global landscape, marked by extreme climate change events and raging wars, the last thing we need are more life-destroying weapons of mass destruction.