The United Nations has just recently decided to postpone the UN Conference on Nuclear Disarmament scheduled to take place in New York from May 14-16, 2018. New dates for the UN conference have not yet been set.
As a result the Count the Nuclear Weapons Money, a 7-day action highlighting the colossal nuclear weapons budget and what this money could instead support, will be postponed until UN Disarmament Week , October 24-30, 2018.
This just in from the Basel Peace Office!
You are invited to participate in an exciting action: Count the Nuclear Weapons Money.
One trillion dollars is being allocated over the next ten years to modernize the nuclear arsenals of nine countries.The corporations making these weapons lobby for increased spending on nuclear weapons, stimulating the nuclear arms race and increasing the risk of a nuclear war.
Count the Nuclear Weapons Money will demonstrate the scale of this investment, and how it could instead be devoted to peace and humanitarian needs. While governments meet at the United Nations in New York for the first ever United Nations High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, we will be outside the UN counting one million specially designed notes each of $1 million value, adding up to $1 trillion.
Between May 10-16 we will count money ($100 million per minute, $6 billion per hour, $146 billion per day for seven days). While counting we will highlight economic, social and environmental areas in which this money could instead be invested.
We have parliamentarians, civil society leaders, artists, sports stars, musicians, activists, religious leaders, youth, war veterans and others signed up to count the money for 20-30 minutes each. Click here to sign-up as a money counter.
This action is part of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, a global campaign to cut nuclear weapons budgets, divest from nuclear weapons corporations and move the money to meet areas of human need, such as ending poverty, protecting the climate, supporting renewable energy, creating jobs, and providing adequate healthcare, housing and education for all.
The campaign was launched in October 2016 by the International Peace Bureau, World Future Council and Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Conscious Canada supports this campaign along with many other organisations and networks working in cooperation with the Global Campaign on Military Spending.
