Day 5 - Vedo (7th May)

On May 7th I attended a meeting on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.
First of all i really have to say, that this NGO-meeting was one of the most interesting and best structured I have been to during this 10 days. It was organized by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and unified experts from different departments.
Two physicians opened the conference and presented impressing facts and slides on the outcomes of a fictional nuclear war.
The first war "took place" between India and Pakistan and the second one between the U.S and Russia. The speakers presented statistics and charts that showed the dramatic effects of such a war, which covered obviously firstly the figures of dead people. They were followed by indirect impacts. The soot, for example, which would soar up high into the atmosphere would absorb incoming sunlight and hence cause a dramatic decrease in amount of light reaching the surface. This would result in a sweeping decrease of the growing season and lead to a decline in food production and consequently to more than 40 Mio. new people becoming malnourished.
In a last step the technical damages of a possible nuclear war were covered. The electromagnetic pulse would destroy the electronics in the surrounding hospitals and due to that render them useless.

The panelists argued that human consequences of a nuclear war developed to a key issue of the NPT PrepCom 2012. The deterrence discussion (diplomats) is shifting towards a humanitarian consequences (public) one. This change in the discussion is quite obvious and important because it bears a big potential for public mobilization as well as a rising in the diplomats' awareness on the topic. One discussant stated that the nuclear weapon states themselves don't even know what they are possessing. Nuclear weapons and their consequences are something totally abstract most of the policymakers aren't even able to think about.

Civil Societies task is to remind them of the unbearable consequences day after day.