They top a list of 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, which also includes cuts to aid spending by wealthy countries, the climate crisis and childhood malnutrition.
The experts behind The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health said all the threats interact, meaning they must be addressed together – but stressed that there was “a realistic route to act” on each.
“Decisions made by leaders today will shape the health and wellbeing of the next generation,” said Prof Christopher Murray, commission co-chair and the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington.
To create its list, the commission modelled how many years in good health might be lost due to sickness, disability or early deaths due to each threat, based on current trajectories – a measure known as disability-adjusted life years (Dalys).
“Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years,” the report said, adding that while their likelihood remained low, they had the potential to end humanity in the case of nuclear conflict by injecting enough particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and cause famine, or via AI-created biological weapons. An accompanying Lancet editorial, published alongside the report, warned: “The scale of harm, should they be realised, would inflict an apocalypse on humanity.”
Other risks that could cause more than 1bn cumulative Dalys, and therefore deemed “major catastrophic threats”, included air pollution, antimicrobial resistance, childhood malnutrition and climate breakdown, as well as conventional conflict, declining overseas aid, high alcohol use, high blood pressure, income inequality, low educational attainment, naturally occurring pandemics, obesity, poor mental health, smoking and unhealthy ageing.
To be included on the list, threats not only had to potentially cause a high number of lost healthy years, but also to have potential solutions.
Ibrahim Abubakar, commission member and professor of infectious disease epidemiology at UCL, said: “We are not starting from a point of view of ‘oh look, we want to scare you – we’ve got X many threats facing humanity’. We’re starting from the premise that if you are a policymaker today, whether at the global multilateral level or at the national level, these are the potential threats that you could face, and this is the magnitude by which, if you act, you can actually make a difference.”
Action to limit global heating to about 1.8C (3.2F) rather than letting it reach 4.4C could prevent 1.89bn years of healthy life being lost... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/oct/11/nuclear-war-and-malicious-use-of-ai-threaten-end-of-humanity-by-2100-says-lancet-assessment?CMP=fb_gu#Echobox=1791706906
