The Doomsday Clock has moved to a worrying position for the very first time amid the threat of nuclear war rising. The clock was created in 1947 to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear weapons.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock 90 seconds to midnight. The closer it edges to midnight, the nearer the experts from the Science and Security Board believe that the world is to an Armageddon scenario.
The Express reports that Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine and a deepening climate catastrophe have concerned the scientists. The Chicago-based group make annual predictions on the globe's fate by moving the hands of the clock every January.
The scientists encompass all kinds of threats they believe are posing a risk to human existence. The panel is made up of experts in the fields of nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies and bioterrorism.
It meets twice a year to discuss the current threats and whether a clock reset is necessary or not. Back in 2020, scientists decided to move the clock to 100 seconds to midnight amid “two simultaneous existential dangers - nuclear war and climate change”.
Fast-forward to the present day, Russia’s war efforts has seen President Vladimir Putin dish out terrifying nuclear threats which he claims are not “bluffs”. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has warned the heat of "Armageddon" is at its most intense since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), this year’s Clock announcement is an indication that urgent action must be taken to avoid nuclear disaster. The organisation is calling for the world’s nuclear powers to begin eliminating their arsenals.
The group has laid out a roadmap to push the globe on a path to being free from nuclear weapons. ICAN claims that the next step is setting up a round-table conversation among the world's nuclear powers in which they will discuss how they can disarm.
ICAN’s Executive Director, Beatrice Fihn said “We have had enough of the Doomsday Clock warnings being followed by inaction. The leaders of the nuclear armed states must urgently negotiate nuclear disarmament, and the G7 meeting in Hiroshima in May 2023 is the perfect place to outline such plan.
"The leaders of the G7 countries must now step up and seize the moment of their meeting in the first city to have been devastated by an atomic bomb at huge human cost to tell us how they will work with Russia, China and other nuclear armed states to end this grave threat to humanity.”
The clock movement comes months before G7 leaders are due to meet in the city of Hiroshima in May 2023. This venue was deliberately by Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, as this was the first city to suffer a nuclear attack.
The PM is hoping to put forward international peace and security at the centre of the his agenda.
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