The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight on January 28, 2025, surpassing its previous setting of 90 seconds to midnight. The new time indicates we are now at the most dangerous moment in history since the Doomsday Clock was launched in 1947, two years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The new setting of the global Doomsday Clock highlights the need for urgent action to reduce the growing threat of the accidental or deliberate use of nuclear weapons.
The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic representation of our proximity to annihilation (midnight), is one of the most authoritative annual assessments of how humanity is tracking on the biggest issues: the threats posed by nuclear weapons and global heating. Each year in January, it is set by the science and security board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a group of scientists and other experts with deep knowledge of nuclear technology and climate science.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists attribute their decision to move the clock forward largely because of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and threats to use them, disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, the Russian-Ukraine war, conflict in the Middle East, biological/pandemic threats and the escalating climate crisis.
With President Trump taking office in the US, he gains the ultimate authority over America’s nuclear arsenal and regains control of the nuclear launch codes, and authorisations.
In response to the new time, Tilman Ruff, Associate Professor in the Nossal Institute for Global Health in the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne and co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Australia), said:
“Nuclear-armed states building nuclear weapons and delivery systems designed to last till the end of this century belies their obligation to negotiate a world freed from nuclear weapons. The only thing the figleaf of nuclear deterrence is reliably deterring is nuclear disarmament.”
“We are teetering near the edge of unprecedented danger but must not lose hope,” he added. “We need action by governments and people that comes much closer to matching the immensity and urgency of the danger. Our best hope lies in the 2017 Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, now joined by very nearly half of the world’s nations, with a combined population of 2.5 billion.”
“The treaty for the first time makes the worst weapon of mass destruction illegal in international law. It has changed nuclear debates and is stigmatising nuclear weapons and threats,” said Ruff.
“It has already stimulated financial institutions managing over four trillion US dollars in funds to divest from companies profiting from building nuclear weapons. It is bringing to life long-overdue assistance for the victims of nuclear weapons use. And it provides the only internationally agreed framework for verifiably and irreversibly eliminating nuclear weapons. As Labor has committed to do, joining this treaty is the best immediate step responsible nations can take to wind back the Doomsday Clock.”
