To launch the ELN’s new project “NEVER”, which seeks to unite young people working on global catastrophic risk from across Europe, Lord Martin Rees writes on the need for an alliance between science and the public sphere and the role young individuals and activists can play in this.
Today the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have announced the Doomsday Clock 2023 and how close we are to midnight. We asked some of our network members what can be done to turn back the clock and avert a man-made global catastrophe.
In contrast to the disappointing outcomes of the non-proliferation and disarmament pillars of the 2022 Review Conference, a significant reinvigoration took place in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy pillar. Olamide Samuel writes that Pillar III offered progressive solutions by identifying how the treaty plays a role in mitigating some of the most pressing human and environmental security issues of our time and could help inform mechanisms for cooperation and success in future RevCons.
In the past, concerns about a nuclear attack were mainly in regard to the leaders of rogue states acquiring nuclear weapons. The war in Ukraine has shifted this threat to the leader of a superpower waging a war with thousands of known nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. Tarja Cronberg explores the ways in which control over nuclear weapons can be taken out of the hands of world leaders, and how to mitigate the risk of a nuclear war triggered by the human error of powerful individuals.
In October, the ELN and Hanns Seidel Foundation partnered on a track 1.5 meeting in London which brought together a range of European and Iranian participants both to assess how the JCPOA could still be revived and to consider alternative scenarios in more detail. The ELN’s Policy and Impact Director, Jane Kinninmont, captures the key highlights from the meeting.
Dr Alexander Graef and Tim Thies look at what kind of arms control might be feasible in the context of evolving multipolar strategic rivalry by drawing on lessons from the past. They argue that the US and NATO allies should pursue limited yet necessary arms control measures that enhance their security.