3/7/2024 0 Comments Countdown till midnight 2021![]() Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record high in 2020, one of the two warmest years on record,” they said “Instead, fossil fuel development and production are projected to increase. “But over the coming decade, fossil fuel use needs to decline precipitously if the worst effects of climate change are to be avoided.” “A pandemic-related economic slowdown temporarily reduced the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming,” the authors said. Globally, the year tied with 2016 as the hottest on record. ![]() “The election of a US president who acknowledges climate change as a profound threat and supports international cooperation and science-based policy puts the world on a better footing to address global problems,” the Bulletin said.Ģ020 was the warmest year recorded in Europe, breaking the previous 2019 record by 0.4☌, according Copernicus, the EU’s satellite earth observation system. “The US, China and other big countries must get serious about cutting lethal carbon emissions – now,” Jerry Brown, BAS executive chair, said.Ĭlimate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal, is also among the major threats cited by the Doomsday Clock authors. In his recent inaugural phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Biden promised to coordinate with Europeans on Middle East Peace issues and on how to save the deal with Tehran. The scientists also recommended the US to return to the nuclear deal with Iran, which former US President Donald Trump had exited in 2018.īiden has said he wants to undo the diplomatic harm caused by Trump’s unilateral reimposition of sanctions on Iran, which happened over the objections of European allies but has so far not signalled any policy details. “Nuclear weapons and weapons-delivery platforms capable of carrying either nuclear or conventional warheads continued to proliferate while destabilising ‘advances’ in the space and cyber realms, in hypersonic missiles, and in missile defences continued,” the scientists wrote. “We, of course, pose a similar threat to the Russians.” “Russia poses the most serious threat imaginable to the United States it could launch – possibly by mistake or miscalculation – hundreds of nuclear missiles, with absolutely catastrophic consequences. The Bulletin’s experts had also written an open letter to new US President Joe Biden, warning “that an absolutely catastrophic US-Russian nuclear blunder is possible”. The scientists listed the development of hypersonic glide vehicles, ballistic missile defences and missiles that can use both conventional and nuclear warheads, as raising the risk of mistakes. However, the scientists stated that despite the extension, the nuclear modernisation plans of the major nuclear powers raised the risk of a nuclear conflict being sparked by miscalculation. The move preserves the last major pact of its kind between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers after the past few years has seen several important arms control treaties being ended or undermined. In one of the first major foreign policy decisions of the new US administration, Washington and Moscow have struck a deal to extend the accord. The announcement came only a day after the 2010 New START Treaty, a threatened milestone accord between Moscow and Washington which caps nuclear warhead numbers, was salvaged from expiring in February 2021. The world was furthest from self-destruction in 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War, when the clock showed 17 minutes to twelve, according to the Doomsday Clock. It’s current board members include 13 Nobel laureates. ![]() The clock was first created by US scientists working on the atomic bomb-building Manhattan Project during World War II to warn humanity of the dangers of nuclear war. “It’s a vivid illustration that national governments and international organizations are unprepared to manage the truly civilization-ending threats of nuclear weapons and climate change,” Bronson said. “ revealed just how unprepared and unwilling countries and the international system are to handle global emergencies properly,” the group said. ![]() This year, we’re closer than ever, the scientists announced on Thursday (23 January). Since 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists annually adjusts its symbolic Doomsday Clock, which indicates how close humanity and the planet are to complete disaster. Doomsday Clock: 100 seconds until the end of the world
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