The ICAN Cities Appeal was endorsed by the the City of Adelaide, South Australia, on 11th June 2024.

MOTION

Deputy Lord Mayor Keiran Snape moved that Council:

Formally endorse the following text of the Cities Appeal:

“Our city/town is deeply concerned about the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities throughout the world. We firmly believe that our residents have the right to live in a world free from this threat. Any use of nuclear weapons, whether deliberate or accidental, would have catastrophic, far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for people and the environment. Therefore, we warmly welcome the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by the United Nations in 2017, and we call on our national government to sign and ratify it without delay”

Seconded by Councillor Carmel Noon. CARRIED.

The City of Adelaide confimred they had written to Prime Minster Anthony Albanese, referencing the Cities Appeal and Adelaide’s call for Australia to Join the Treaty on the Prohibtiion here. 

MEDIA: Council push for nuclear weapons ban treaty, IN Daily

Deputation to the Adelaide City Council by the Medical Association for Prevention of War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (SA Branches). Image Credit: Fernando M. Gonçalves

Quotes attributable Dr Amanda Ruler:
National Vice President and SA Branch Co-Convenor, Medical Association for the Prevention of War (MAPW)

Britain conducted 12 nuclear test explosions in Australia between 1952 and 1957 and hundreds of minor trials of radioactive and toxic materials for bomb development up to 1963. These caused untold health problems for local Aboriginal people, who were at the highest risk of radiation. Many of them were not properly evacuated, and some were not informed at all. We may never know the full impact of these explosions…. But we can listen to the survivors and their stories – and learn from them.

It takes around ten seconds for the fireball from a nuclear explosion to reach its maximum size. The thermal radiation vaporises everything close to ground zero. The extreme heat ignites fires everywhere close to ground zero and creates a giant firestorm. In this way, a single nuclear bomb detonated over a large city would kill millions of people from the initial blast and subsequent fires. The use of tens or hundreds of nuclear bombs would cause major climate disruption, with a decade-long nuclear winter causing widespread famine. Infectious disease epidemics and conflicts over scarce resources would be rife. Radiation would transcend borders and generations, permanently increasing the risk of cancer, chronic disease and genetic damage. Hospitals and healthcare centres would be destroyed, and healthcare workers such as doctors, nurses and paramedics would be mostly killed or injured. Any meaningful humanitarian response to aid the immediate survivors would be impossible. Support from outside the impacted area would be extremely limited due to radiation concerns.

Civilisation and all that humankind has ever strived for over our whole history of evolution could be destroyed forever in the event of a major nuclear war.

There is no solution to the use of nuclear weapons, only in their prevention.