Global cooperation on nuclear disarmament looks even further away Expert comment jon.wallace 3 June 2026 The Iran war inhibited progress at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. But so did P5 countries’ resistance to talking seriously about disarmament. The 2026 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference concluded on 22 May without a consensus outcome document. It is the third time in a row that states parties have failed to agree on a review of the treaty’s implementation and progress, or to set out a plan to support and strengthen the treaty’s implementation. However, this failure was different from the last.In 2022, it was Russia alone that blocked agreement, following its invasion of Ukraine. This year, multiple countries were prepared to hinder progress. The fractures ran across the ‘P5’ – the UN Security Council permanent members, all of whom are classed as ‘nuclear-weapon’ states and are the only countries permitted to possess nuclear weapons under the treaty. (Other nuclear armed countries are not parties to the treaty). But what happened in New York was not a targeted disruption. It was the latest sign of a non-proliferation system under strain in an increasingly dysfunctional environment.What broke down and whyThe primary cause of failure was the Iran conflict. Countries could not agree on adding a paragraph addressing Iran’s non-compliance with its NPT obligations and stating that Iran could never acquire nuclear weapons. That remained bracketed in the final draft outcome document, meaning consensus had not been reached. Conference President Đỗ Hùng Việt, whose management of an extraordinarily difficult process deserves credit, chose not to force states into a public confrontation on the issue. When he asked the conference to adopt at least a procedural consensus on strengthening the review process, Russia, China, and Iran blocked that too. Related work Avoiding a new nuclear arms race Even if Iran had not been the breaking point, something else might have been. Other fault lines were close to the surface: Russia pushed for the deletion of text on North Korea’s weapons programme, prompting South Korean objections. Disputes over language on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, still under Russian occupation, remained unresolved. A pattern is emerging, where review conferences become a forum for airing regional and bilateral grievances. That reflects a broader shift in how the major nuclear powers approach multilateral institutions. When powerful states believe that their security interests are better served by bilateral leverage than by collective frameworks, consensus-based multilateral processes become difficult to sustain. The disarmament deficitThe failure to agree a final document obscured another serious problem. Even the draft that was on the table represented a significant weakening of prior commitments.New START, a US–Russia nuclear arms control agreement, expired in February with nothing to replace it. That leaves the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals without any agreed limits for the first time in over fifty years. China’s nuclear build-up is accelerating. The US has threatened to resume nuclear testing and has accused both Russia and China of conducting tests. France has announced an expansion of its nuclear programme.In this environment, the five recognized nuclear weapon states arrived in New York and set about forcing the removal of language calling on them to begin negotiations on disarmament – or even to pursue discussions urgently. Nuclear weapons states removed even more mild requests from the outcome document – for more transparency and accountability on their part. The final draft vaguely called for constructive dialogue that might facilitate future progress. Many non-nuclear weapons states will interpret this as a signal – that beyond ensuring other countries do not acquire nuclear weapons, the P5 are no longer committed to the wider NPT regime. Collective engagement can only do so much if the P5 are not listening. The grand bargain at the heart of the NPT – that non-nuclear states forgo nuclear weapons in exchange for progress on disarmament by the P5 – is under severe strain, and the cracks are showing.There were still meaningful signals from the wider membership. Countries pushed back against weakened disarmament language. There was strong opposition to any resumption of nuclear testing, with many states defending the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The fact that so many non-nuclear states remained engaged and vocal matters. But collective engagement can only do so much if the P5 are not listening.What comes nextThe next NPT Review Conference is in 2031. The risk is that the underlying conditions deteriorate further during the intervening five years, proliferation pressures mount, and the case for investing political capital in the NPT becomes progressively harder to make.Avoiding that outcome requires a practical assessment of what went wrong and what can be done differently.An important lesson is that review conferences cannot be the primary forum for adjudicating active crises. When countries demand that a consensus-based multilateral process takes sides on contentious regional issues like the wars in Iran or Ukraine, deadlock is almost guaranteed. An alternative is possible. In the leadup to the 1985 Review Conference, nuclear arsenals were almost at their Cold War height, Israel had destroyed a safeguarded nuclear reactor in Iraq, and there were serious non-proliferation concerns relating to several non-parties (such as South Africa and Brazil). In this unsecure environment, the United States and Soviet Union famously set their differences aside and focused on strengthening the system by cooperating to reach consensus, rather than weaponizing it. That was a long time ago, but it is a reminder that cooperative behaviour during times of high geopolitical tension is possible.The P5 need to strengthen engagement with one another on nuclear risk reduction through the ongoing ‘P5 process’ – a diplomatic forum between the countries. Dialogue has stalled in recent years. But this is a crucial route for progress on even modest confidence-building measures on doctrine, on new technologies, and on crisis communication. The P5 demonstrating a willingness to engage in good faith, and treating the NPT as worth preserving, would itself send a signal. Seriously engaging with transparency and accountability initiatives put forward during the review conference would be a good start and is relatively low pressure and low-hanging fruit in terms of compliance.
Chatham House
The motives for the accumulation and management of foreign exchange reserves are a key topic in international economics. This column highlights an aspect of the international monetary system that has been the subject of little research: the distinction between foreign exchange reserves held as deposits and securities. Using new data for 109 countries since 1950, it documents a major shift toward securities starting in the late 1990s. This reflected reserve accumulation beyond immediate liquidity needs, consistent with mercantilist motives.
Center for Economic Policy Research
Als Secondo wächst Infantino im Wallis auf. Jahrzehnte später regiert er den Weltfussball – trotz zweier linker Beine.
SRF Wirtschaft
AI water usage requires governments to rethink their approach to water Expert comment thilton.drupal 1 June 2026 From the local impact of data centres to risks in the global supply chain, water use for AI threatens to exacerbate existing stress on water resources. Recent months have seen a growing backlash against AI technologies as they develop and are deployed at scale. Water use in data centres and the stress that use is putting on local water resources has been part of this backlash. A recent survey found that most Americans would rather have a nuclear power plant in their area than a data centre.Globally, communities are now facing competition over their water from AI-driven data centre operations. Many of these communities were already feeling the effects of longstanding water management challenges exacerbated by climate impacts. As countries including the UK embrace the rapid build out of AI infrastructure, governments and companies must ensure that water use is managed sustainably and transparently or risk further backlash against AI on a wider scale. Data centres and local supplyThe connections between AI and water are wide-ranging, spanning from local impacts that are intertwined with national politics through to geopolitical risks related to water use in global supply chains. Most visibly at the local level, technology companies that are building and operating large-scale digital infrastructure platforms are facing scrutiny on how they use water, especially in some of the world’s driest areas. Data centre water use is closely connected to the enormous electricity consumption required for computation. That energy use generates heat that must be dissipated, and evaporative water cooling systems are currently a common way to do that. Despite major water use efficiency improvements and more waterless innovations being deployed in data centres, AI’s rapid growth means that data centres are still becoming a fast-growing driver of water demand. In the UK, although data centres currently account for a very small proportion of water demand, there are reported plans to build around 100 new centres by the early 2030s. These are expected to become a significant new source of demand. The UK government has positioned AI as central to its growth plans, pledging £68 billion in investment since January 2025 and designating five AI Growth Zones. This embrace of AI implies an assessment that water allocated to grow the digital economy will, over time, lead to a higher tax revenue and stronger growth. AI’s rapid growth means that data centres are becoming a fast-growing driver of water demand. The government is also planning to build the first new reservoirs in 30 years to keep up with increased demand. But despite these well-meaning plans, there are still concerns over water: 84 per cent of proposed UK data centres are planned in areas that are projected to be water stressed by 2040. How much water is used for AI, and the extent to which water for AI should be prioritized over uses in other sectors, is a complicated issue and subject to debate. AI is evolving rapidly; it is difficult to quantify exactly how much water it consumes for different purposes, such as using a chatbot or processing a prompt. Simply quantifying water in data centres and then comparing that figure to water use in another sector, such as agriculture, fails to capture the full scope of the footprint. Geopolitical risks and impactsLocal considerations on AI water use are also connected to geopolitical risks and impacts further down the supply chain. Governments should take these into account when calculating the impact of AI water use. A data centre might look like an isolated piece of industrial infrastructure in a local community, but the servers inside it connect it to global mining and manufacturing supply chains. These servers rely on complex components such as high-powered semiconductor chips, which are tied to global supply chains that have their own intense water impacts. Related work Making water use in global trade more sustainable Taiwan produces over 90 per cent of the world’s advanced semiconductors. Semiconductor manufacturing is water-intensive, due to the high consumption of ultrapure water (UPW) required to maintain extreme purity levels in manufacturing processes. But Taiwan’s hydrological balance relies on seasonal typhoons to replenish groundwater, and climate change has made typhoons less predictable, increasing the risk of drought. This water-based risk is compounded by other geopolitical risks such as shifting tariff policies and the potential of military conflict with China, leaving the global supply chain vulnerable to shocks that should be factored into water-related strategic decision making.A shared challengeGiven that water is a shared resource, and any water challenges are essentially shared across society, collective action from governments, investors and companies – in collaboration with communities – is necessary. System-wide improvements are needed. Some technology companies are already taking circularity solutions seriously, and are scaling advanced cooling technologies. Water recycling in data centres has been implemented in some places such as the Netherlands, where closed loop systems are starting to be put into use. These solutions are encouraging and will go a long way. But they will not fully address the fundamental water challenges that are currently inherent in scaling AI. Governments committed to the digital economy will need to fund broader solutions, which means greater investment in public water services. They will also need to scale those solutions that support good stewardship of water. These include developing practical actions to protect shared water resources, including equitable access to public water services that prioritize domestic water use and more vulnerable water users.
Chatham House
