UN Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas said Tuesday that nuclear weapons still pose a serious threat, calling for further efforts to reach "a world free of nuclear weapons."

The U.S. actor and producer made the remarks at an academic symposium on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Nuclear Disarmament, Non-Proliferation and Energy held at the UN headquarters, as delegates from the world gathered here for the month-long NPT review conference.

"Growing up in the Cold War, I was routinely reminded of the threat of nuclear weapons," Douglas said, noting the threat is no less important today.

"We may have fewer nuclear weapons, but these weapons and their delivery systems are more powerful and more sophisticated than ever before," he said.

"One of the great ironies of this is that the cost of developing and maintaining nuclear weapons is surpassed only by human environmental costs of using them," he told an audience from Harvard University and Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Douglas, who has promoted abolition of nuclear weapons as a moral imperative, was appointed UN Messenger of Peace in 1998.

"Although it is expensive to destroy them, the price we would pay if they fell into wrong hands or detonated accidentally will be far greater," he said.

He stressed that the work of the academics and scholars is " crucial", as they are not "bound by the same political restraints as the delegates of this year's NPT review conference."

Calling for more research to foster understanding on nuclear disarmament, Douglas said: "your work can and will bring us closer to a world free of nuclear weapons."

The international tide of nuclear abolition - so strong in 2010 - has ebbed, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message to the symposium, which was delivered by High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Angela Kane.

"Mounting tensions between nuclear-armed States have produced a return to Cold War mind sets," he noted, calling on the academic circle to provide ideas that will lead to a world free of nuclear weapons.

The 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) kicked off at the UN headquarters on Monday. The conference through May 22 will evaluate the implementation of the Treaty's provision since 2010, and is expected to consider a number of issues, including universality of the NPT, nuclear disarmament with specific practical measures and nuclear non-proliferation. Endite

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