8 billion humans on Earth at the end of the year: should we be worried? – LaDepeche.fr

the essential The world population should reach 8 billion people on November 15, according to a UN projection. Should we be worried about it? La Dépêche du Midi takes stock with Gilles Pison, specialist in world demography. The world population is expected to reach 8 billion people on November 15, according to a projection from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs published on Monday July 11. It should reach about 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050. “Zero growth by the end of the century” “The population should then continue to grow to reach 10.4 billion in 2080 “, explains Gilles Pison, professor at the National Museum of Natural History, associate researcher at INED, specialist in world demography. “At that time, the world population would reach a ceiling and would not increase any more. We are therefore on the way to achieving zero population growth by the end of the century”. “Certainly, the Earth will have a quarter more humans, but there will be no multiplications as we have been able to observe in the past, indicates the specialist. The bulk of the world’s population growth is behind us”. Another important point: if the population continues to increase, the rate is decelerating, and has been for about fifty years. “Population growth reached a maximum growth rate of over 2% per year in 1960. Since then, the population has continued to increase but decelerated. Today, it is growing at a rate of almost 1% per year And this rate is expected to continue to decline in the coming decades.” One in four humans will live in Africa in 2050 But how to explain it? Mainly, due to the decrease in fertility. “Today, couples give birth to an average of 2.3 children. It was more than double, or 5 children, in 1950”, explains Gilles Pison. Among the regions of the world where fertility is still high – in other words above 3 children on average – we find almost all of Africa, the regions in Asia ranging from Afghanistan to northern India, passing through Pakistan. “It is in these regions of the world that the bulk of future global population growth will be located.” Thus, one of the great future changes will be the strong increase in the population of Africa. “Africa had 1 billion inhabitants in 2010. Today it is 1.3 billion. And the continent could have 2.5 billion inhabitants in 2050, and nearly 4 billion in 2100! In other words, today, one in six humans lives in Africa. It will be one in four in 2050 and probably one in three by the end of the century. Humanity will therefore be distributed differently.” “The first challenge is the climate challenge” This projection of the UN poses today and tomorrow several challenges. “We will have to feed the 10 billion that there will be on Earth better than we feed the 8 billion today, explains the expert. Part of the population does not eat enough to satisfy itself, both in quantity and quality. And others eat too much. But the challenge is not that big, because the number of humans suffering and dying of hunger has never been so low today”. “The first challenge is the climate challenge, says the specialist. It is illusory to think of being able to act on the number of humans in the years to come. We will not escape this additional 2 billion humans by 2050, due to demographic inertia, which no one can prevent”. However, according to the specialist, the important thing today is to act on lifestyles, and this without delay, in order to make them more respectful of the environment, biodiversity, and more resource-efficient. “If there is a problem, it is not because there are too many of us, but because we live in an unsustainable way, especially in the countries of the North”. What is the impact of Covid-19? The Covid-19 pandemic has increased mortality in the years 2020-2021. “Experts estimate nearly 15 million additional deaths linked to the pandemic. That is 10% additional deaths”, details Gilles Pison. “However, this increase in deaths is temporary and does not call into question demographic levels and trends. According to UN projections, from 2022 and in the following years, the latter will resume their pre-pandemic course” .