Ending the nuclear arms race starts with cities doing their part

A recent study from the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force Characteristic Medical Centre, which was published in the Chinese Journal of Radiological Health, was a stark reminder that while low, the probability of a nuclear attack on cities is not zero. Any such attack would overwhelm emergency services.

More than 1,000 cities in 24 countries have called on their national governments to join the TPNW as a way to halt the nuclear arms race. Cities such as New York, Canberra, Berlin, Paris, Rome and Washington have all encouraged their governments to join the TPNW and eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

As cities are the main targets of nuclear weapons, they have a responsibility to speak out and encourage efforts to eliminate them

Susi Snyder, 18 Sep 2026, Susi Snyder is director of programmes for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The catastrophic danger posed to cities by nuclear weapons is nothing new. Putting major urban areas at risk across generations is, in fact, the point of these weapons of terror. The practice of doing so is benignly called nuclear deterrence, but it requires holding the cities of adversaries – real and imagined – under constant threat.

The use of even the smallest nuclear weapons in today’s arsenals would cause a humanitarian emergency in cities. That is why city leadership should have a voice in nuclear policymaking.

Attacking cities or other densely populated areas has always been part of warfare. Whether it’s medieval sieges to unseat ruling powers or drone attacks on Kyiv, cities are not safe from war. Efforts to restrict or limit civilian suffering in cities and populated areas have included the endorsement by 91 countries of a political declaration on explosive weapons in populated areas.

Through this, nations are looking for ways to reduce and prevent the known reverberating effects of explosive ordnance contamination in urban areas, effects which are compounded and made long-lasting by the destruction of cultural, educational, commercial, infrastructure and healthcare facilities. Nuclear weapons are highly explosive weapons which also leave a lasting radioactive legacy.

No country is prepared to respond to the use of nuclear weapons. A 2014 report from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research showed that there are unique problems associated with nuclear weapon use, including radiation and radioactive fallout, large numbers of injured people with multiple trauma, serious burn injuries and radiation-related illness. They also found “there are inadequate specific procedures and systems appropriate to nuclear weapon detonation events as these differ from civil nuclear accidents in significant ways”.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) published a study looking at the response capacity in key global cities, including Beijing. In that study, we found even if just one average-sized, 100-kiloton nuclear weapon was detonated over Beijing today, the immediate health impact would be catastrophic. There are not enough medical personnel or hospital facilities to treat what could amount to 1.2 million casualties.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) put it succinctly, saying: “There is no adequate humanitarian response capacity in case of use of nuclear weapons.” The ICRC, UN humanitarian agencies and more than 100 governments recognise the only way to ensure protection from nuclear weapons is by preventing their accidental or intentional use.

The legal framework to do so exists. The framework of nuclear weapons-related agreements, from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), offers a way to move towards verifiable and irreversible nuclear disarmament.

As cities are the main targets of nuclear weapons, municipalities have a special responsibility to their populations to speak out against any role for nuclear weapons in national security doctrines and encourage efforts to eliminate the risk of nuclear weapons. Mayors and other municipal leaders are rising to the challenge.

Through the ICAN Cities Appeal, these cities are empowered to act locally on global issues such as nuclear disarmament, stand up for the protection of those living in their cities and demand action. The gruesome images of the two cities destroyed by nuclear weapons, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, are a reminder of everything at risk from nuclear dangers.

In efforts to protect civilians, leadership might not always come from the highest levels of government. Instead, it might rise from the cities, the communities and the people who see nuclear weapons as a threat. The growing support for the ICAN Cities Appeal and the TPNW, especially in countries where national governments are clinging to outdated policies that allow for the use of nuclear weapons, shows that leadership.