World population passing 8 billion
Some time today Earth’s population is expected to pass eight billion, according to the United Nations, which will announce the milestone in events staged in New York and at the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt.
The figure, expected today according to projections by the UN Population Fund, has come thanks to longer lifespans and the rapid growth of some nations in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
It came only 11 years after the figure hit seven billion, but amid projections that this ‘‘unprecedented growth’’ was now slowing. There will not be nine billion people until 2037, according to the UN.
Its officials sought to cast it as a cause for celebration while at the same time issuing warnings of challenges that lie ahead as humanity reaches a predicted peak population of about 10.4 billion sometime in the 2080s.
‘‘It’s a reflection of our success as a species, to be able to proliferate the way we have,’’ John
Wilmoth, director of the population division in the UN department of economic and social affairs, said.
‘‘At the same time it raises questions about our impact on the world.’’
Although the population has grown most rapidly in the modern era, more than trebling in the 20th century, average fertility rates have been dropping since 1950. Then the average woman had five children; by last year it was 2.3 and by 2050 it is expected to drop to 2.1. However, fertility rates remain far higher in some of the least developed nations. The UN projects that eight countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania – will account for more than half the population increase by 2050.
India is now drawing level with China, with a population of 1.4 billion, and is expected to surpass it next year. China’s population may begin to shrink next year, according to the UN. The fertility rate there was 1.16 last year.
‘‘Many of us get married very late and it’s hard to get pregnant,’’ Tang Huajun, 39, a father of one from Beijing, said.
China’s one-child policy, imposed from 1980, was dropped in 2015. Beijing began allowing couples to have up to three children last year in an effort to raise a birthrate that had slipped to 1.16.
For developing nations with booming populations, there are concerns that rapid growth will make it more difficult to improve education and to hit goals for sustainable development, as part of efforts to reduce climate change.
But population growth has had less of an impact on climate change than the growth in ‘‘the scale of our activities’’, Wilmoth said.
‘‘There has been an increase in the size of the impact that each person is having on the environment,’’ he added.