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A world without nukes

Posted by Phil Twyford on November 13th, 2009

Sometimes it is hard to imagine a world without nukes. I mean really, can you imagine the Americans, Russians and Chinese giving up their last nuclear warhead? Let alone the likes of India, Pakistan and Israel.

Imagining that world is about to get a little bit easier. Gareth Evans was in town recently and previewed the key proposals in the soon to be published report of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND).

I posted on the humanitarian work Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, has been doing in recent years. He also co-chairs the ICNND which was set up by the Australian and Japanese governments. Its job is to breathe new life into the nuclear disarmament agenda and build an international consensus in the lead up to next year’s conference to review the Non Proliferation Treaty.

The Commission’s report will set out a road map for nuclear abolition.  It breaks the task down into three phases:

Now to 2012 – strengthen the non-proliferation regime (designed to halt the spread of n-weapons), fix Iran and North Korea, get the US to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Obama has promised to do this), move to set up a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East, get a fissile material cut-off treaty in place (controlling production of weapons grade plutonium and uranium), and get multilateral disarmament happening (negotiations between US and Russia are getting underway).  This first phase is designed to get momentum on a range of initiatives, build confidence and get some runs on the board.

(more…)

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, disarmament, international, peace
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Nuclear deterrence gets a little glasnost

Posted by Phil Twyford on October 26th, 2009

President Obama’s high profile advocacy for a world free of nuclear weapons is sending ripples across the western alliance as a couple of key allies take him at his word.

The new German coalition which includes Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre right Christian Democrats, and the liberal Free Democrats, has announced it will ask the US to withdraw its nuclear weapons from German soil. This is a big step for Germany, and I think it is the first time a NATO member has openly advocated for the withdrawal of nukes. It could well spark a debate across the Alliance.

“We will take President Obama at his word and enter talks with our allies so that the last of the nuclear weapons still stationed in Germany, relics of the Cold War, can finally be removed,” foreign minister designate Guido Westerwelle said. Westerwelle is from the Free Democrats.

Meanwhile the new Japanese government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has launched a probe into previously secret agreements under which Japan turned a blind eye to US nuclear armed ships visiting and the storage of nuclear weapons on the US military based on the island of Okinawa in contravention of Japan’s prohibition on the  making, possessing or storing nuclear weapons on its soil. According to the Wall Street Journal the investigation has created a buzz in Japan, where the secret agreements were long discussed but always officially denied.  The story quotes political analysts saying the move is is a largely symbolic move to show a change from governments run by the Liberal Democratic Party, which dominated Japanese politics for more than half a century, until last month.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, disarmament
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Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament

Posted by Maryan Street on October 14th, 2009

Say that 6 times fast! Henceforth to be referred to as PNND. It’s something I’ve belonged to since I came into Parliament – I mean, why wouldn’t you? But I never got to go to any of the meetings they had because they are always in New York and a bit expensive to get to. But seeing I was in Washington, it was only a hop, step and a jump to the Big Apple so not nearly as expensive – well, in theory.

It is always great to meet other MPs/Congresspeople/Senators from other countries and across parties and when the agenda is as compelling as the anti-nuke one, there can be some inspiring moments.

This 2 day conference had Parliamentarians (for short) and some officials from the US, France, Britain – including the Scottish Parliament – Japan, Korea, Germany, Canada, Belgium, Costa Rica, Malaysia and more besides discussing how we might domestically and internationally seize the momentum given to the anti-nuke agenda by President Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly last month. For those who don’t want to go to the link, Obama outlined 4 pillars of US foreign policy under his administration, the first of which is to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and seek a world without them.

That is a conversation stopper. It stops the old conversation about “show me yours and I’ll show you mine”, or “no first use” (as if the retaliatory strike will improve anything!) or any of those other mindboggling arguments which keep the world teetering on the brink of annihilation.

It starts a new conversation (or more correctly, an old one again but with more impact) about arms reduction to zero, expanding nuclear-free zones from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere and challenging the nuclear weapons states to get on and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and dismantle the nuclear war machinery.

We talked about all those difficult areas – some of them being Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel and the US – but there are real challenges for major powers and it is going to take hard-nosed commitment from clever leaders to make this agenda come true in our lifetime.

We met with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, at the end of our meeting. His 5 point plan for nuclear disarmament is on the money too.

There’s a lot of work to do to make this real. But at least it feels that now we might get somewhere.

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Filed under: disarmament, international, peace
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NZ-US Partnership Forum – Washington

Posted by Maryan Street on October 13th, 2009

Well that went well! No really – it did. I was pleasantly surprised at how warmly the Americans responded to us. They didn’t have to, but they put up seriously senior officials, gave us access to significant politicians, and presented us with substantial business leaders. All credit to Stephen Jacobi and the team at our end and to his counterparts in the US.

Given the overwhelming, all-consuming debate around whether everyone should be allowed to have access to health care (say what?), it’s surprising the Americans had any time to talk about trade at all. But they did. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was clearly on the agenda, but timing was the issue.

Obama clearly has to make workers feel more secure before he can venture out into trade territory which might make them nervous. The Land of the Free isn’t always – certainly not when it comes to health and sometimes not when it comes to trade either. Providing healthcare for all will go a long way to shoring up  insecure workers. With nearly 15 million of them out of work, security becomes paramount.

I was interested in how much the talk around business actually included talk around security – of borders, of the rule of law, of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. It all ties together actually….and that segues nicely into my next blog, when I talk about the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament meeting (PNND) which I have just been at in New York. If we don’t get that right, we won’t have anybody left to trade with….

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Filed under: disarmament, trade
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Letter from America IV- Multilateralism on the Mississippi

Posted by Grant Robertson on September 20th, 2009

Lets be honest, Muscatine is not a town I had ever heard of.  Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi River in rural Iowa, it is a fairly sleepy town. Perhaps about the least likely place in the world to find a think tank dedicated to preaching the virtues of multilateralism to Americans.  As one of our party remarked yesterday it is probably a great place to have a think tank, as there is not much else to do but think!

The Stanley Foundation is the legacy of C.Maxwell Stanley. Mr Stanley was a Muscatine native, a moderate Republican and a successful enginner  who having spent time abroad, in Africa particularly, decided to devote some resources to supporting the notion that multilateralism is the way forward for US Foreign Policy.  His son Richard is the Chair of the Foundation, and is still very much engaged, attending the roundtable held for our group yesterday.

The foundation’s task is not an easy one. Multilateralism is not the American way.  The rugged individualism that characterises the stereotyped American psyche also pervades foreign policy. Why should American bow or compromise to anyone, let along the collective will of nations much its smaller? Certainly the Bush administration grabbed this notion and ran with it, neatly lining it up with its overarching doctrine of governing by Fear, with a capital F.

Yet here, and in other parts of the foreign policy community there is cautious optimisim that the Obama administration is embracing multilateralism, albeit cautiously. Multilateralism is of course the international embodiment of the the message of Hope that Obama so skillfully developed in the campaign. If we work together we can overcome all obstacles.

Obama’s positioning is now being regularly described as one of engagement.  He is working hard, often quietly behind the scenes at developing the relationships he needs to solve problems that are beyond any individual country.  As ever with Obama tone and symbol are important.   He reversed Bush’s decision about a missile defence system in Europe just as the G20 is about to begin.  We have heard he will deliver substantive and newsworthy messages in his UN General Assembly speech, including around climate change.   The evolving administration position on climate change (on which I plan to blog more fully) is based around a recognition that progress is only possible in lock step with China, India and others.

There are of course concerns.  Obama is still a politician playing in the toughest political league in the world. Domestic policy agendas and conerns about poll ratings mean he is moving slowly.  If anyone (Iran, Russia etc) look like they will  try to exploit the approach of engagement and compromise then pressure will come to bear to show some more teeth.

But in Muscatine there is optimism, and yes, hope, and that is not something they have felt for a long time.

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Filed under: Foreign Affairs, Uncategorized, climate change, disarmament
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Say “No” to Mr Burns

Posted by David Parker on August 7th, 2009

A respondent to my recent blog opposing more dams on the Clutha River suggested NZ should go nuclear. I wish it was a wind-up, but the myth of cheap safe nuclear needs to be exposed whenever it is raised.

I’m happy to summarise why Labour is so resolute in our opposition to nuclear power in NZ.

Nuclear waste remains dangerous for thousands of years. Not hundreds, but thousands. So long that it is hard to comprehend.

The environmental risks posed by toxic radioactive waste are real. So are accidents. Remember Chernobyl?

A nuclear power plant would be NZ’s biggest security risk. NZ is a low-risk country – not a no-risk country.

These are serious issues, as is the misuse of nuclear materials for weapons. The consequences of nuclear war are so dreadful we seldom talk about them these days.

These realities are enough for me, but some people still say “do it, it’s cheap”. But it’s not.

Nuclear would be far, far more expensive for NZ than our renewables, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they don’t come small. The high capital cost of constructing an individual nuclear power plant means large plants are required in order to recoup the multi-billion dollar investments required.

Because of the small size of the NZ market (which needs an average of around 130MW of new capacity each year), if you built a 1000MW nuclear plant you would build 7 years ahead of demand. You would have paid for 7 times as much as you need that first year. That means the effective unit cost of the power you actually need is much higher.

Like all other types of generation, nuclear is sometimes unusable while maintenance is carried out. So you if you were reliant on a big chunk of power like that, you’d need some extra reserve. A number of smaller renewable generating facilities provide that diversity without having to have extra reserve generation and so are cheaper for us.

You would have to import the nuclear fuel, and pay for the cost of an independent nuclear regulator and safety agency.

As if that’s not enough, the costs of decommissioning are huge, as is the cost of securely disposing of waste for thousands of years. The UK looked at those costs recently and from memory found the decommissioning costs alone were close to the original construction costs.

So, notwithstanding the Nats relaxing foreing investment rules in NZ, I doubt that Mr Burns or Homer will be coming to NZ anytime soon.

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Filed under: Energy, disarmament, environment
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