「終末時計」残り１００秒　１９４７年の設置以来最短に

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】米誌「ブレティン・オブ・ジ・アトミック・サイエンティスツ」は23日、人類による地球破壊までの残り時間を比喩的に示す「終末時計」が残り100秒と発表した。1947年に設置されて以来、残り時間は最短となった。（写真は米首都ワシントンで開かれた米誌「ブレティン・オブ・ジ・アトミック・サイエンティスツ」の記者会見で、残り1分40秒を示す「終末時計」）
　過去最短となった終末時計は、気候変動や核戦争の懸念の高まりにより、人類に対する危機が過去最悪の水準に至ったことを示している。
　危険水準は、ディープフェイク（人工知能など高度な技術を使って偽造された）動画や音源、宇宙の軍事化、極超音速兵器の開発をはじめとする破壊的な技術と情報戦争により悪化した。
　同誌のレイチェル・ブロンソン社長兼最高経営責任者（ＣＥＯ）は発表で、「世界が終末にどれだけ近づいているかを示すのに、われわれは今回、時間や分ですらなく、秒を使っている」と指摘した。
　核兵器問題に詳しいシャロン・スクアッソーニ氏は、過去半世紀以上にわたり破滅からの回避に貢献してきた軍縮管理の枠組みは現在、崩されており、来年には消滅する恐れもあると言明した。米国とロシアは２０１９年、中距離核戦力（ＩＮＦ）全廃条約の破棄を通告し、同条約は失効。双方はかつて禁止されていた兵器を配備する新たな競争に入った。米国はまた、ロシアと２０１０年に締結した新戦略兵器削減条約、通称「新ＳＴＡＲＴ」について、延長しない意向を示している。
　イランはウラン濃縮活動を強化しているが、スクアッソーニ氏は今年の結果について、「イランの核合意が完全に崩壊したためによるものだけではない」と述べた。
　北朝鮮についてスクアッソーニ氏は、当初ドナルド・トランプ米大統領の斬新な取り組みが成果をもたらすとの希望もあったが、実質的な進展が何もなく、それどころか、北朝鮮は新たな戦略兵器の開発推進を言明していると述べた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/01/24-08:48）

The Doomsday Clock on Thursday ticked down to 100 seconds to midnight, symbolizing the greatest level of peril to humanity since its creation in 1947 as the threat posed by climate change and a growing nuclear race loomed large.
The danger level was compounded by information warfare and disruptive technologies ranging from deepfake video and audio to the militarization of space and the development of hypersonic weapons.
We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds ? not hours, or even minutes, said Rachel Bronson, president of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in announcing the change.
The decision on the clock is taken by panels of experts, including 13 Nobel laureates.
It was originally set at seven minutes to midnight, and the previous worst -- two minutes to midnight -- held from 2018 to 2019 as well as 1953. The furthest it has ever been is 17 minutes, following the end of the Cold War in 1991.
- Scrapped treaty -
On the nuclear front, the arms control boundaries that helped prevent catastrophe over the last half century are being dismantled and may be gone by next year, said subject expert Sharon Squassoni.
This includes the demise in 2019 of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, with the US and Russia entering a new competition to deploy once banned weapons. The US has suggested it won't extend New START, an arms reduction treaty signed in 2010.
This year could see not just the complete collapse of the Iran nuclear deal, added Squassoni, with Tehran boosting its enrichment efforts.
And despite initial hopes US President Donald Trump's unorthodox approach to North Korea may produce results, no real progress ensued, said Squassoni, with Pyongyang instead vowing to press ahead with a new strategic weapon.
- Climate hope? -
On climate, two major UN summits fell dismally short of the action required to limit long-term warming to the goals laid out by the Paris Agreement that scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophe.
The effects were already apparent in the record-breaking heat waves and floods India faced in 2019, and the wildfires that raged from the Arctic to Australia.
If humankind pushes the climate into the opposite of an ice age, said Sivan Kartha, a scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute, we have no reason to be confident that such a world will remain hospitable to human civilization.
Yet the experts took heart in mounting climate activism spearheaded by a youth movement that is spurring some governments to action.
Misinformation campaigns and fake news catalyzed by deepfake videos are potent threats to social cohesion, while the rise of AI weapons like drones that attack targets without human supervision create new uncertainty.
Russia meanwhile has announced a new hypersonic glide missile and the US is testing its own weapons that severely limit response times of targeted nations.
Space, long an arena for international cooperation, is also becoming increasingly militarized with multiple countries testing projectile and laser anti-satellite weapons and the US creating a new military branch, the Space Force.
We ask world leaders to join us in 2020 as we work to pull humanity back from the brink, said Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders leadership group and former president of Ireland.
Now is the time to come together -- to unite and to act.