Keystone-SDA
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June 17, 2024 – 08:00
(Keystone-ATS) The nine nuclear-weapon states spent nearly $3,000 per second last year on their stockpiles. The total reached 91.4 billion (more than 81.8 billion francs), or 10.8 billion more over one year, the NGO ICAN announced in Geneva on Monday.
The United States alone invested more than half of this financing, with 51.5 billion. With the British, they have increased the most their funds injected into this armament, specifies a report from the International Campaign for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The increase in the total figure stood at more than 13% over one year. After the United States, China comes second with just over 11 billion dollars. She is ahead of Russia.
“This money is in fact lost,” an official from the organization told correspondents accredited to the UN in Geneva (ACANU). It could have supplied more than 12 million households with renewable energy or reduced by more than a quarter the lack of financing for the fight against climate change and the loss of biodiversity.
Over the past five years, the nine nuclear states have invested nearly 400 billion dollars. The increase reached more than a third and even almost 60% in Pakistan.
ICAN once again calls on different states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which nearly 100 countries have signed. She will launch an initiative in Switzerland this summer. The Federal Council recently reiterated that association with this agreement is not in the country’s interest.
Switzerland had given up signing it in 2018. It particularly fears effects in terms of foreign and security policy, even more so with the various conflicts observed in the current international situation.
