Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is a senior lecturer in Chemistry at Columbia University, as well as being a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Nine nuclear weapon states possess nearly 13,000 nukes in the world. If there were a nuclear exchange, over 5 billion people would die from starvation or direct contamination within 2-years. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a substantive agreement to help move toward total or partial nuclear reduction. The US spends over $150 million or more each day to maintain the nuclear stockpile. The US is pursuing upgrading the nuclear weapon stockpile at a staggering cost of over $2 trillion. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) adopted in 1968, is the foundation for nuclear arms control. The NAP Foundation has consultative status at the UN and is a Peace Messenger.