US relations with Russia and China remain tense, with all three countries engaged in an array of nuclear modernization and expansion efforts-including China’s apparent large-scale program to increase its deployment of silo-based long-range nuclear missiles the push by Russia, China, and the United States to develop hypersonic missiles and the continued testing of anti-satellite weapons by many nations. Still, the change in US leadership alone was not enough to reverse negative international security trends that had been long in developing and continued across the threat horizon in 2021. A more moderate and predictable approach to leadership and the control of one of the two largest nuclear arsenals of the world marked a welcome change from the previous four years. Perhaps even more heartening was the return of science and evidence to US policy making in general, especially regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, in 2021 the new American administration changed US policies in some ways that made the world safer: agreeing to an extension of the New START arms control agreement and beginning strategic stability talks with Russia announcing that the United States would seek to return to the Iran nuclear deal and rejoining the Paris climate accord. The announcement was made at a event from the National Press Club in Washington in conjunction with speakers at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.Last year’s leadership change in the United States provided hope that what seemed like a global race toward catastrophe might be halted and-with renewed US engagement-even reversed. The world was at its safest in 1991, when the clock was at 11:43. The closest the clock has been to midnight was in 1953, when it was set at 11:58 p.m. “Unless we change the way we think, humanity remains in serious danger,” he said. How can the clock move back? Krauss suggested that less spending on nuclear arms, a re-energized effort toward disarmament and engagement of North Korea could all help.īut the key was changing the thinking of political leaders – and humans in general. The Doomsday Clock has just been updated and it's bad news - it's not budged. Last year, the clock was moved two minutes closer to midnight, from the 11:55 position it had held since 2012. Republican Party, “which stands alone in the world in failing to acknowledge even that human-caused climate change is a problem.” “Promising though it may be, the Paris climate agreement came toward the end of Earth’s warmest year on record, with the increase in global temperature over pre-industrial levels surpassing one degree Celsius,” the Bulletin’s statement said. He called the recent Paris climate talks agreement “only a tentative success,” a description expanded upon in a statement. The publication’s Sivan Kartha, a climate change expert, said trends in world climate also played an important role in keeping the clock where it is. “The decision is not good news but an expression of grave concern,” he said of the Bulletin’s decision. and Iran, world affairs still presented formidable challenges. Krauss of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors said that, despite the Paris climate agreement and a deal between the U.S. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, in conjunction with its Nobel Prize-laden Board of Sponsors, looks at global issues on a regular basis and decides whether to move the minute hand of the clock, with particular stress on the status of nuclear arms and reaction to climate issues. “When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries.” “We, the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, want to be clear about our decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2016: That decision is not good news, but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world’s attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change.

Far too close,” the Bulletin said in a statement. “Three minutes (to midnight) is too close. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists January 26, 2016 The clock remains at 3 minutes to midnight - Rachel Bronson, Executive Director and Publisher of the Bulletin. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which oversees the clock – a metaphor of how close humanity is to destroying the planet – left the hands in place from last year, which is the closest it has been to midnight since the Cold War days of 1984. The Doomsday Clock stands unchanged at three minutes to midnight.

3 minutes to midnight doomsday clock