Make no mistake, President Obama declared in a statement to Global Zero Summit participants [2], achieving a world without nuclear weapons will be hard. “Yet always remember this,” he said, “when people of passion and goodwill refuse to accept the world as it is, when we see the world as it might yet become, then great change is inevitable.”

More than 200 key political, military, business and faith leaders who refuse to accept a world with more than 23,000 nuclear weapons are currently gathering in Paris, France to strategize on how to make a world without these weapons inevitable. The summit [3], hosted by Ploughshares Fund grantee Global Zero [4], is also laying the foundation for the launch of the next phase of Global Zero’s campaign [5] to build worldwide public and political support for nuclear elimination.

President Dmitriy Medvedev [6] and Prime Minister Gordon Brown [7] joined Obama in sending statements of support for the Global Zero Summit. Medvedev reminded participants that “the end of the Cold War epoch and creation of an atmosphere of trust and partnership in the relations between leading world powers have opened a way to a joint quest for new forms of ensuring international security and stability. Today our common task consists in undertaking everything to make deadly weapons of mass destruction to become a thing of the past.”

Looking to the future, Brown thanked participants for the “work you are doing to make the world safer for our children and theirs” and declared, “I believe that a world free of nuclear weapons is not only achievable, but one of the most important policy objectives of our times.”

To view the full statements of support, please click on the links below:

• President Barack Obama [2]
• President Dmitriy Medvedev [6]
• Prime Minister Gordon Brown [7]
• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon [8]

To learn more about the Global Zero Paris Summit, please click here [3].