Dismantling bombs to make room for new ones

French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced earlier this week that his country will dismantle some of its airborne nuclear weapons. This is good news, right? Well, yes … but not entirely.

He made the announcement at the inauguration of a new nuclear-armed submarine, appropriately named The Terrible, and stressed that France’s “nuclear deterrent” remains its “life-insurance policy”.

Disappointingly, this scenario has become quite typical. The five original nuclear weapon states – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China – are all bound by Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to disarm.

But the trend has been to get rid of obsolete weapons while building new ones – and then they claim that they’re fulfilling their disarmament obligations. This kind of proliferation, known as vertical proliferation, should be universally condemned. But very few countries are bold enough to criticise.

On a more positive and personal note, I have been selected to attend the Australian Prime Minister’s 2020 Youth Summit in Canberra. It will be a great chance to encourage the new Government to lead the international charge for nuclear weapons abolition and to get other young people enthusiastic about the cause.

Youth have been at the heart of efforts to end extreme poverty and to tackle climate change; we must now also put our energies into the equally important task of banning the Bomb. I’ll let you know how it goes.