It’s the 72nd anniversary of Hiroshima, and at a memorial ceremony attended by representatives from 80 nations, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for all nations to participate in the effort to eliminate nuclear weapons. As we know, around this time our president was crashing weddings in a golf cart.
As NPR notes, last month the UN adopted its first nuclear disarmament treaty, although neither Japan nor the United States signed on. If member states participate, and the treaty is ratified, it would be “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination.”
According to the Japan Times, Abe made no mention of the UN treaty in his speech but instead said that nations should follow Japan’s lead in its policy not to produce, possess, or allow nuclear weapons on its soil. And in order for a treaty to work, nations like the United States will need to sign on.
“For us to truly realize a ‘world without nuclear weapons,’ the participation of both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states is necessary,” he said.
Meanwhile Trump’s proposed budget would give National Nuclear Security Administration a $1.39 billion boost while eliminating the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and nearly all climate science funding. So, it would cut support for climate change, but we won’t have to worry about climate change anyway if there’s a nuclear winter.