The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight, warning that humanity is now just 85 seconds away from catastrophe, the closest the world has ever been to what the group describes as potential extinction.
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The adjustment, announced at a briefing in Washington DC, saw the clock advanced by four seconds, reflecting growing global risks such as nuclear conflict, climate change, emerging technologies and geopolitical instability.
If the symbolic clock reaches midnight, it signifies that humanity has failed to avert global disaster, including scenarios such as nuclear war or irreversible environmental collapse.
Alexandra Bell, president and chief executive officer of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said world leaders have not taken sufficient action to reduce existential threats.
“Every second counts and we are running out of time. It’s a hard truth, but this is our reality,” Bell said.
Board member John Wolfsthal said the decision to move the clock forward was unusually clear-cut this year. “Overall, 2025 has been a pretty bleak picture in terms of advancing existential risks,” Bell added.
The Doomsday Clock has been edging closer to midnight in recent years, having been set at 90 seconds to midnight in 2023 and 89 seconds in 2025. The furthest it has ever been from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991, following agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce nuclear arsenals at the end of the Cold War.
According to the Bulletin, one of the key factors behind the latest shift is the heightened risk of global conflict escalating into a third world war. The group said that despite repeated warnings, “aggressive” states have continued to expand their reliance on nuclear weapons and military force.
Recent geopolitical tensions cited include warnings from Iran that any attack by the United States would result in “all-out war,” ongoing protests and crackdowns in Iran, Israel’s war in Gaza, and Russia’s prolonged invasion of Ukraine, now in its fourth year.
The Bulletin has repeatedly warned that a single miscalculation or accident could turn existing conflicts into nuclear confrontations.
Steve Fetter, a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, also raised concerns about emerging technologies, particularly unregulated artificial intelligence. He said new AI tools “pose a threat to the survival of humanity.”
“Using such videos can try to persuade people that things have happened that have not happened, that there are perhaps riots in a location or acts of war that are fake,” Fetter said, referring to the growing use of AI-generated images and videos.
Climate change was also highlighted as a major contributor to global instability. The Bulletin said continued dependence on fossil fuels has intensified extreme weather events, including wildfires in California, deadly heatwaves in Europe and a powerful hurricane that struck Jamaica last year.
Biological threats such as COVID-19, bird flu and the global responses to pandemics were also cited as factors influencing the decision to move the clock closer to midnight.
First introduced in 1947, the Doomsday Clock is intended as a warning to the public and policymakers about the consequences of failing to address the world’s most serious threats.
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