Opening Plenary, August 4
2024 World Conference Against A & H Bombs
Oleg Bodrov, physicist, ecologist
Public Council of the Southern Coast of the Gulf of Finland
International Peace Bureau Board member
Russia
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE VICTORY THROUGH WEAPONS IN THE ATOMIC WORLD
Kon’nichiwa!
Dear participants of the conference!
Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Gensuikyo for the annual invitations to the world conference against A & H Bombs.
Thanks to this, as a representative of Russian civil society, I have a unique opportunity to discuss modern security challenges with partners from all over the world. Today, more than ever before, I feel the need to find solutions to today’s challenges related to nuclear technology.
Political and socio-ecological turbulence is intensifying on our planet. Catastrophic natural phenomena have become more frequent, and the likelihood of using weapons has increased. New global challenges have emerged – wars in regions with a high concentration of nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power plants and spent nuclear fuel storage facilities were built without protection from possible attacks by modern non-nuclear weapons. If they are destroyed, the negative consequences for human health can be global and more long-lasting than with the use of atomic weapons.
Russian and Belarusian scientists have published a detailed study on the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986. According to their estimates, the total number of additional deaths because of radiation pollution in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America in the 20 years after the disaster reached about 1 million people. And this number continues to grow.
For comparison, according to available information, the number of victims of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years after the tragedy reached 450 thousand people.
Thus, the destruction of one nuclear reactor caused more deaths than two atomic bomb explosions in Japan!
If Hiroshima and Nagasaki were reborn in the same place, then it is impossible to restore safe life near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
This means that the so-called “peaceful nuclear technologies of nuclear power plants” in modern socio-political conditions have been transformed into radiological weapons of mass destruction. And this is not an abstract problem!
Over the past three years, the largest nuclear power plants in Europe have been attacked. The Zaporizhia NPP in Ukraine was captured by Russian troops, and the infrastructure of the Russian Leningrad NPP near St. Petersburg was destroyed by terrorists.
The spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from these 2 nuclear power plants in Ukraine and Russia contains 20 thousand times more plutonium-239 than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Politicians who continue fighting in Ukraine and other countries hope for victory. But it is impossible to achieve victory with the help of weapons on a planet where there are 450 nuclear power plant reactors and tens of times more spent nuclear fuel next to them.
The destruction of spent nuclear fuel storage facilities and the release into the environment of plutonium with a half-life of 24 thousand years will have global catastrophic consequences for the environment and thousands of future generations of people on our planet.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and international conventions have not protected nuclear power plants from attacks by the military and terrorists.
At the same time, the IAEA is lobbying for the construction of new nuclear power plants as a tool for solving the climate crisis. But it is impossible to solve the climate problem by creating risks of radiation pollution of the planet.
The solution to the global crisis cannot be found by the politicians who created this crisis.
This is the task of civil society.
Coalition of peacekeeping, environmental, human rights organizations, movements to protect the traditional way of life of indigenous peoples can formulate a new agenda. The role of Japanese civil society and the national sense of solidarity can be significant in this global process.
After all, Japan is the only country that has experienced the consequences of both military and “peaceful” nuclear technologies.
Let us hold hands and act together for the health of our living planet!
Stop the killing of Ukrainians, Russians, Palestinians, Israelis!
Negotiations immediately!
I support the traditional slogan of the conference: NO MORE HIROSHIMA, NO MORE NAGASAKI, NO MORE FUKUSHIMA; NO MORE HIBAKUSHA!
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACHIEVE VICTORY THROUGH WEAPONS IN THE ATOMIC WORLD!
Arigato!