"The USA and Russia between them hold 93% of the world’s arsenal, with thousands on hair-trigger alert and ready to be
launched within seconds of the order being given. According to SIPRI,
to take one example, the USA is due to spend up to $1 trillion over the
next 30 years.
This
terrifying statistic stands against another published by the
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), who
are holding their international congress on September 4 in the UK city
of York. Their 2013 report, prepared for a conference studying the
humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons, indicates that a limited
nuclear war with the use of 100 warheads dropped on cities would lead to
a nuclear winter that could end the lives of up to 2 billion people.
These worrying numbers have led civil society campaigns such as ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN),
to heavily promote a nuclear weapons ban treaty, bringing nuclear
weapons in line with chemical and biological weapons as legally
prohibited weapons of mass destruction."
