Doomsday Clock has officially been moved by scientists to signal how close we are to end of the world

As we settle down into 2025 after a January that feels like it has lasted for months, some of the world's leading scientists have updated the Doomsday Clock and brought us back to reality with a bang.

Formed back in 1947, the Doomsday Clock was set up by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists as a way to register how close society and civilisation as we know it is to falling apart. It was inspired partly by the testing of the first ever atomic bomb during the Trinity Test and Manhattan Project; two events you've likely seen dramatised if you went to watch Oppenheimer.

The Doomsday Clock has been updated for 2025 (Getty Stock Image)

Scientists J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, and Eugene Rabinowitch were the three men who founded the clock, which looks at the threat of those apocalyptic scenarios we're more than common with when it comes to watching said Hollywood blockbuster or the latest natural disaster drama.

Now, for 2025, the Doomsday Clock has been been moved closer and is now 89 seconds to midnight.

In 2023, the Bulletin moved the clock to 90 seconds to midnight and it remained there for 2024. That was the closest it has ever been to midnight in the history of the clock's existence until today's (28 January) announcement.

Last year, Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, said this was because of a continued threat to humanity and the Earth through nuclear weapons, climate change, artificial intelligence (AI), ongoing conflict, and future pandemics.

It is determined by a number of factors including the threat of nuclear war but also famine, conflict, and climate change (Getty Stock Image)

What does the Doomsday Clock actually mean?

In the words of the Bulletin itself, the Doomsday Clock is a metaphor; something that serves as 'a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet'.

It is designed to warn the public about 'how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making'.

That could be through climate change and damaging the environment to energy uncertainty or conflict between nations.

Bleak - if it were to ever happen (Getty Stock Images)

Why is the Doomsday Clock at 89 minutes to midnight for 2025?

Back in 1947, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight.

Since then, it has gone back on eight occasions and forward 17 times, showing an overall growing worry about the state of things around the world.

Speaking about the announcement today, Daniel Holz, the Bulletin Science and Security Board chair and professor at the University of Chicago, said the clock was moved to 89 seconds to midnight due to a lack of progress on global challenges including nuclear risk, climate change, and biological threat.

"The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size of all of their arsenals, spending hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilisation many times over", Holz said.

"Meanwhile arms control treaties are in tatters and there are active conflicts involving nuclear powers.

"The world's attempts to deal with climate change remain inadequate... 2023 was the hottest year on record, by far, and 2024 was even hotter."

Holz said advancements in an 'array of disruptive technologies' including biotechnology and AI have 'far outpaced policy, regulation, and understanding of consequences'.