The threat of use of nuclear weapons has not completely ended. Nuclear power plants are in persistent danger of being bombed. It is therefore important that the countries should debate on reducing tensions in different parts of the world so that production, sale and use of the armaments is put under check.  

According to the IPPNW report Nuclear Famine, based on research conducted by climate scientists Alan Robock, Lili Xia, and their colleagues, a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan using 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear bombs will put more than two billion people at risk of starvation because of the impact on global food supplies. Such a war would kill up to 20 million people outright as major cities of the subcontinent would be destroyed and it would blanket much of South Asia with radioactive fallout. 

According to the estimates in the study, the food crisis is likely to trigger internal and external conflicts. In such a situation, the use of nuclear weapons between the two nuclear super powers, the United States and Russia, cannot be ruled out. Huge swaths of both countries would be blanketed by radioactive fallout and their industrial, transportation, and communication infrastructures would be destroyed. Most Americans and Russians would die in the succeeding months from radiation sickness, epidemic diseases, exposure and starvation.  

Nuclear weapons abolition must be part of the climate agenda | IPPNW peace and health blog