Peace

Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction - they indiscriminately incinerate people and contaminate air, soil, and water across national boundaries and across generations.

That's why the world agreed to work to eliminate nuclear weapons decades ago.

But in his final months as Prime Minister Tony Blair made clear that his aim was to build a new nuclear bomb to replace the current Trident nuclear weapons system. Determined to rush through plans for its development before he left office, he forced through a House of Commons vote in March 2007. Despite the largest Labour back-bench rebellion since the Iraq War, forcing Blair to rely on Conservative support, he got his way. And current PM Gordon Brown has indicated his intention to continue down this dangerous path.

By renewing, replacing or upgrading Trident, the UK would be breaking international law and the use of such a weapon would likely breach international humanitarian law through its indiscriminate and uncontrollable effects.

Our Prime Minister is threatening to wreck the global treaties that are our best hope of stopping nuclear weapons from spreading across the planet.

If we say new nuclear weapons are essential for our defence how can we tell other countries they don't also need them.

As the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El Baradei, put it: "You cannot continue to have a cigarette dangling from your mouth and ask everybody else not to smoke."

And all this comes with an enormous price tag. The government will spend tens of billions of pounds on a new nuclear weapon at a time when the greatest threat we face is not a nuclear attack, but climate change.

We are working to put a stop to the development of new nuclear weapons in the UK and around the world. What is needed now is global cooperation to combat climate change for any chance of real global security.