An unsafe world

An unsafe world

Context

• Global instability from proliferation and weaponization may soon become a reality

How is the nuclear armament threatening to humanity?

• The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) task to balance the benefits of nuclear technology for human development against the irreversible risks to the planet’s survival has been increasing
  The world’s nuclear weapon states (NWSs) continue to flout their disarmament obligations with impunity
• The possession of the deadly bomb by four other countries, besides the five nations that founded the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), testifies to the impediments to restrict the use of nuclear energy for civilian purposes.
• North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s defiance to expand the country’s weaponization programme is only the latest instance of erosion of the NPT’s authority.
• The Fukushima disaster has brought into sharp focus major concerns over the management of nuclear waste, with potentially dangerous consequences for human civilisation

What was the Fukushima disaster?

• The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was an energy accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima, initiated primarily by the tsunami following the Tōhoku earthquake on 11 March 2011.
• The issue will pose questions on the merits and sustainability of nuclear technology as a credible source of energy. Governments ought to be more transparent on these matters.

What is the way ahead?

• Against this backdrop, the prospects are remote that the 2017 treaty to legally ban nuclear weapons could win support from the NWS.
• In the historic 1953 Atoms for Peace address to the UN General Assembly, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower proposed the establishment of the agency to harness nuclear science for peace.
• Equally, the emphasis on nuclear science to promote the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals would be subject to the safety frameworks in place.
• IAEA member states have evidently been slow to adopt measures to enhance the safety of nuclear material transferred within and across national borders.
• An amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material came into force only in 2016.