September 17, 2024 Updates

Follow the week of action: No Money for Nuclear Weapons

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With nuclear-armed states spending $91.4 billion on their nuclear weapons last year, ICAN has called for a week of action against this unacceptable diversion of public resources into weapons of mass destruction. From September 16-22, people all over the world came together to say “No Money for nuclear weapons”.  Check out some of the higlights here:  

Sunday 22: End of the week, but not of our actions!

The week of action against nuclear spending closes with peace actions in Australia and the United States, while at United Headquarters in New York, the first day of the Summit of the Future is taking place. World leaders and civil society are gathered to review the UN Sustainable Development Goals and figure out how to move forward to achieve those goals.  ICAN’s Melissa Parke and Seth Shelden - along with many of our partners in civil society - are there to remind states that:

• Any use of nuclear weapons would inflict catastrophic destruction, unspeakable suffering, and death and would cause long-term damage to the environment, socioeconomic, and sustainable development, the global economy, food security, and the health of current and future generations.

• The 90 billion dollars of annual spending on nuclear weapons is a theft of resources from current and future generations, and represents resources that should be directed towards ensuring a just and sustainable future for all. #NoMoneyForNuclearWeapons!

The language in the newly adopted Pact for the Future is - unfortunately but unsurprisingly - weaker on the issue of nuclear weapons than it should be and does not contain explicit details about ending the spending on nuclear weapons. However it does bind all UN members to an agreement to “advance the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons” and as a campaign we will continue to push to see that future happen! 

With UN High-level Week starting on Tuesday, states have another opportunity to show how they see their role in shaping that future.  One critical question is likely to come up: how will we pay for these efforts? So we want to answer that question for them: there are billions wasted every single year on nuclear weapons which could be used for this instead (and there is a treaty banning these weapons of mass destruction altogether that all responsible states should join!) 

World Peace Day (September 21)

ICAN campaigner holds up sign "Pas d'argent pour des Armes nucleaires" alongside signs urging Switzerland to sign the TPNWGeneva says: No Money for Nuclear Weapons & Switzerland: sign the TPNW! Photo: ICAN | Aude Catimel

With Peace Day activities taking place around the world, people showed there is no better way to mark such an important day than by taking action against the big, dumb, clumsy and expensive bombs that threaten everything we love - and the billions of dollars being wasted on these nuclear weapons every year!   From Geneva to California, from Japan to Scotland, we saw rallies, signature drives, teach-ins, webinars,  protests at banks, and more…  


September 19 and 20: media, reports, comics and flashmobs

Throughout the week of action, we are seeing a great variety of tactics and tools being put to use to put pressure on governments and financial institutions to stop spending on nuclear weapons. In Italy, local partners were able to leverage the full range - from street actions to the Italian release of the global spending report with extra information on Italian nuclear weapons spending and a concerted effort to generate massive media coverage, to impressive results. Highlights include pieces in the daily newspapers Avvenire and La Repubblica, in-depth interviews for Altreconomia on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons and for the leading Italian online news site Fanpage about nuclear costs and on the global situation related to nuclear arsenals, and this powerful interview with Francesco Vignarca of the Rete Italiana Pace e Disarmo for Italian national public television RAI's news channel:  

We also saw widespread use of graphics throughout the week. From the powerful cartoon by Mauro Biani featured in the newspaper La Republica, to a custom comic (or BD) for ICAN France about the role of banks - and calling your bank to divest - in the problem, to posts translations of ICAN's alternatives to nuclear weapons spending flyers spending being used online to raise awareness by our Japanese and Spanish partners.  

And of course, the street actions continued, like this flashmobs in Milan, Napoli and Pisa by local Greenpeace groups calling on their city to suppport the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - and call on the Italian government to join it. The treaty prohibits all activities related to nuclear weapons, including their financing, and cities can play a large role in urging the government to join, as well as divesting their own finances from the companies that produce nuclear weapons. 

Photo:Greenpeace

September 17 and 18:  Banks, Comptrollers and Producers

Our amazing partners were outside Norges Bank for the  #NoMoneyforNuclearWeapons week of action and handed out coffee to celebrate the fact that the Norwegian Pension Fund - the largest in the world - has withdrawn from 3 companies that produce central components for nuclear weapons and encourage the pension fund to finish the job, and completely divest from nuclear weapons.  

Photo: ICAN Norge / Maja Fjellvær Thompson

In France, we've seen partners calling out the banks financing the companies building nuclear weapons. 

The week of action was also an opportunity to hold important meetings about divestment, like in New York, where NYCAN representatives met with the Comptroller’s office to discuss what is needed to get implement Resolution 976, adopted in 2021 and calling upon the Comptroller to instruct the pension funds of public employees to divest approximately $475 million from companies involved in the production and maintenance of nuclear weapons. 

Elsewhere in the USA, partners took to the streets to take on the nuclear weapons producers. In Massachusetts, nearly 50 demonstrators gathered at the L3Harris plant in Northampton, with many dressed in white hazmat suits to protest the company’s role in the nuclear armaments industry. Similar actions in Clifton and Boston:

The action also spilled over into social media, where a daily virtual hours of action targeting a specific company - like Raytheon, L3 Harris, and General Dynamics -  getting rich off producing nuclear weapons that harm all of us:

In Scotland, Maggie Chapman, Member of the Scottish Parliament voiced her concerns as well:

September 16: Kicking off the week of action

The Week of Action on nuclear weapons spending started with activities at nuclear host sites in the Netherlands and will continue through the week at companies building nuclear weapons and banks financing their activities. From the Netherlands to Norway, Glasgow to Los Alamos, ICAN partners and allies are demanding “No Money for Nuclear Weapons”. 

To start the week of action, ICAN partners in Italy secured major newspaper coverage of the gross amount of money wasted on nuclear weapons each year, and the week of action to stop it. This week at least 50 actions and events are planned at nuclear weapon production companies like Huntington Ingalls Industries, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, RTX and L3 Harris. These are a few of the companies most involved in the nuclear weapon industry. 

There are also activities planned to highlight the role of the financial sector in lending money or profiting from the nuclear weapons industry.  Every year since the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect, the number of those profiting from these nuclear weapons companies has dropped- but it’s not yet reached zero. That’s why some partners are demanding an end to nuclear related investments during their actions.

There have also been a lot of calls online to join the week of action, and social media participation with #NoMoneyForNuclear Weapons is kicking off:

Nuclear weapons cost our communities

The $3,000/ second spent on nuclear weapons is a theft of resources from our communities, driven by corporate greed instead of security needs. Nuclear weapons cannot be used without causing catastrophic harm and intergenerational damage. They are big, dumb, clumsy bombs designed for mass destruction. Nuclear weapons affect all of us, so it’s up to all of us to push back against the absurd sums of money wasted on nuclear weapons. And this week of action is an opportunity to speak out, together. 


There are a billion better uses for the money wasted on  nuclear weapons, and this week people across the globe are calling for this money to go where it is needed most.

Further reading:

Leading Swiss figures call on Switzerland to join UN nuclear ban treaty

Enough is Enough: Global Nuclear Weapons Spending 2019

Historic milestone: UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons reaches 50 ratifications needed for entry into force

AFCONE calls for TPNW entry into force on 11th Pelindaba Treaty anniversary

Setsuko Thurlow Boosts Campaign to Acknowledge Canada’s Role in Atomic Bomb Development

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