Breaking News: New IPPNW Resolution Affirming Links between Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Power
IPPNW affirms that the links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons are such that in order to fully abolish nuclear weapons, we also must stop the parallel process of nuclear power.
This resolution arrived at a timely moment just as the Director General of the international Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi announced alarm about the evacuation of the town where most of the workers at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant reside. Grossi stated: “If we have a nuclear accident there, this will not recognize uniforms or flags” . In addition to “enormous suffering and misery of the people there, this added element is going to have ripples and reverberations all over the world."
The resolution recognizes Grossi’s alarm and draws the conclusion that:
The links between nuclear power and nuclear weapons are such that in order to fully abolish nuclear weapons, we also must stop the parallel process of nuclear power.
The resolution was passed at the 23rd Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War held at Mombasa, Kenya April 2023 and originated with IPPNWCanada.
The whole resolution can be found here.
“Nuclear power, which is an expensive, ineffective, and dangerous response to the climate crisis, also fuels nuclear proliferation by inextricably increasing fissile materials and the capacity to produce them. As we are seeing in Ukraine, nuclear power reactors are vulnerable military targets—essentially huge, pre-positioned radiological disasters-in-waiting. Misplaced investments in nuclear power, besides exacerbating this danger, delay the rapid scale-up of renewable energy, increased energy efficiency, and energy storage.”