Patricia Jaworek
Director, Global Nuclear Policy Program
In today’s interconnected world, understanding the cascading global effects of nuclear weapons use is more urgent than ever.
Challenge
Global effects of nuclear weapons use are not well understood and disconnected from nuclear policymaking.
Action
Raise awareness and support novel research on the wide-ranging climatic, economic, humanitarian, and societal effects of nuclear weapons use
Results
Inform nuclear policies and decision making with updated and comprehensive analysis of nuclear effects and promote debate on how effects should be considered in today’s world
The devastating effects caused by a nuclear explosion—light, heat, blast, and radiation—have been known since the Second World War and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, today’s interconnected world demands updated research and analysis into the global effects of nuclear weapons use, how these effects should inform nuclear policies and postures, and how they should be considered in today’s world.
Global systems have become complex and deeply intertwined, creating new vulnerabilities and increasing the risk of cascading failures with potentially far-reaching consequences for the environment, economy, and modern society. Despite these transformative shifts nuclear policy and decision-making remain largely disconnected from the consequences of nuclear weapons use.
NTI is fostering a global interdisciplinary dialogue to reframe how the effects of nuclear weapons are—and should be—considered in today’s nuclear policy landscape.
2025
NTI Highlights Economic Fallout Risks at UN Nuclear Effects Panel
Rapid globalization has created unprecedented systemic vulnerabilities and the potential for nuclear use to trigger cascading failures and far-reaching economic collapse.
NTI Calls for Reassessment of Economic and Financial Fallout of Nuclear Use
A new paper from NTI, “Global Nuclear Effects: Economic and Financial Fallout of Nuclear Use,” calls for an urgent reassessment of the economic consequences of nuclear conflict amid rising nuclear risks and deep global interdependencies.
Global Nuclear Effects: Economic and Financial Fallout of Nuclear Use
Despite the high stakes, the economic and financial considerations of nuclear weapons use remain underexplored. This paper examines several decades of research on economic and financial effects of nuclear weapons use, and explores the key gaps in our understanding of effects in today’s interconnected world.
2023
NTI Highlights Nuclear Effects Research at the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
NTI Program Officer Patricia Jaworek joined a panel discussion on the devastating humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons and shared her research on the subject.
NTI Releases New Paper on Global Effects of Nuclear Conflict: Implications for Nuclear Policymaking, Then and Now
The paper highlights the need for renewed attention to the catastrophic effects of nuclear conflict as a crucial step toward reducing the risk of nuclear use.
Global Effects of Nuclear Conflict: Implications for Nuclear Policymaking, Then and Now
This paper highlights the need for renewed attention to the catastrophic effects of nuclear conflict as a crucial step toward reducing the risk of nuclear use.
2022
NTI Convenes Conference on Global Effects of Nuclear Weapons
More than 40 researchers and scientists with expertise in nuclear security, climate science, agriculture and food security, development policy, engineering, international relations, and economics gathered in person and virtually for a hybrid conference on global nuclear effects convened by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) on June 1-2, 2022.
Depicting Nuclear Risk Accurately: The Likely Global Effects of Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 made clear the destructive force of the light, heat, blast, and radiation from a nuclear explosion. But what exactly would the effects of a nuclear explosion mean for the world today?