Climate change, conflicts, nuclear risk push Doomsday Clock closer to midnight

"In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe," says the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Doomsday Clock is now the closest it has ever been to midnight, signalling that humanity is closer than ever to the precipice of catastrophe.

For 78 years now, scientists from around the world have been gauging exactly how close human civilization is to disaster. They represented this using a clock with the minute hand posed at a number of minutes from midnight. The closer the clock is to midnight, the more precarious the situation for society.

In 2023 and 2024, the Clock had remained at 90 seconds to midnight, which was the closest it had ever been since its inception. However, in 2025, the clock has advanced by yet another second, to 89 seconds to midnight.

2025 Doomsday Clock 89 seconds to midnight

Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board, Herbert Lin, Juan Manuel Santos, Robert Socolow, and Suzet McKinney stand with the updated Doomsday Clock, now set to 89 seconds to midnight during a news conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

"In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement on Tuesday. "Despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course."

"In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, the Science and Security Board sends a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster."

2025 Doomsday Clock - 89 seconds to midnight

The Doomsday Clock as of 2025. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Prior to the year 2000, the closest the Clock had ever come to midnight was 2 minutes, in 1953, just after the first hydrogen bombs were tested. The farthest it has been from midnight was 17 minutes, in 1991, when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union officially ended.

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Nuclear war was the biggest threat that moved the hands of the Clock for the first fifty years or so. More recently, the escalating impacts of climate change, the emergence of new biological threats like COVID-19, and the proliferation of disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, have gained greater weight in these deliberations.

Doomsday Clock - 4 primary risks climate bio nuclear disruptive tech

The four deciding factors in setting the Doomsday Clock each year. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

According to the Bulletin, these threats are being amplified by misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy-minded thought that is spreading on social media and other information sources, which degrades the lines of communication between differing viewpoints and blurs the line between truth and falsehood.

With these threats taking their toll or ramping up the overall danger to our global society, the Clock has been advancing closer and closer to midnight over the past 15 years. Already at six minutes to midnight in 2010, it slipped forward to three minutes by 2015, then two minutes by 2018, and had been at 90 seconds for 2023 and 2024.

Pushing the Clock to 89 seconds to midnight in 2025 stands as a further prompt that we must come together to address the biggest threats facing us.

"Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness," the Bulletin states. "The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here. Despite their profound disagreements, they should take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action."

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