Daily Archives: July 1, 2013

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US Mayors Call for Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

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U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously adopts resolution “Calling for U.S. Leadership in Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and  Redirection of Military Spending to Domestic Needs”

 

Mayors for Peace
Mayors for Peace

Mayors for Peace congratulates the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) for its unanimous adoption of a bold resolution “Calling for U.S. Leadership in Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and Redirection of Military Spending to Domestic Needs.” The resolution, passed by the Conference on June 24 at its 81st Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, calls for constructive U.S. engagement in new international disarmament forums and reorientation of U.S. national priorities by reducing military spending and redirecting those funds to meet the needs of cities.

The USCM is the nonpartisan association of American cities with populations over 30,000. As explained by its outgoing President, Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, who chaired the final plenary: “Resolutions, if passed, become the official policy of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.”

The resolution was adopted on the heels of President Obama’s June 19 Berlin speech in which he declared, “so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe,” and announced his intention to seek
further bilateral nuclear weapons reductions with Russia. The resolution was introduced by Akron Mayor Donald Plusquellic, a former USCM President and Vice President of Mayors for Peace, and had
29 additional sponsors. It highlights several important new multilateral disarmament initiatives not mentioned by Obama in Berlin, and calls on the President and the U.S. government to demonstrate good faith by constructive participation in those initiatives:

·         The first ever High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Nuclear Disarmament, to be held on September 26, 2013 at UN headquarters in New York;

·         A UN working group open to all member states “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear
weapons;” and

·         A follow-on conference to the February 2013 Oslo Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, to be hosted by Mexico in early 2014.

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Insurance Industry Warns on Global Warming

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June 28, 2013

By Tierney Smith

Ocean warming from climate change could make some parts of the world “uninsurable,” according to a new report from global insurance trade body, the Geneva Association.

 

It warns that the speed at which global oceans are warming is threatening the industry’s ability to sell affordable policies around the world, with parts of the United Kingdom (UK) and the U.S. state of Florida already facing “a risk environment that is uninsurable.”

And these areas are unlikely to be the last that will experience such problems.

But in the UK, hundreds of thousands of homeowners in areas at high risk of flooding will still be able to insure their properties, after the government struck a deal with the industry.

The deal—introduced as part of the government’s new water bill—comes just weeks before the current agreement is set to expire and follows lengthy negotiations with the Association of British Insurers.

The agreement will cap flood insurance premiums, linking them to council tax bands so that people in high risk areas will know the maximum they will have to pay, while a levy on all UK household insurers will be used to create a fund to cover claims for people in high-risk homes.

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