“Demographic composition has changed significantly in recent years,” Li Junhua, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, said in a news release.
The report predicts that the world’s population will continue to grow over the coming decades, from 8.2 billion in 2024 to a peak of nearly 10.3 billion in the next 50 to 60 years. But population won’t keep growing forever: By 2100, the world’s population is expected to return to 10.2 billion, 6% lower than UN experts predicted a decade ago.
The United Nations’ last population assessment, released in 2022, suggested humanity could reach 10.4 billion people by the late 2000s, but falling birth rates in some of the world’s largest countries, including China, are one of the reasons why the population peak will come sooner than expected.
More than half of countries have fertility rates below 2.1 children per woman, or the “replacement rate,” the number of children each woman needs to have to avoid population decline.
An additional 48 countries, including Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey and Iran, are also expected to see their populations peak over the next 30 years.
India’s population is 1.4 India’s population is expected to surpass China’s in 2022, surpassing 2 billion and becoming the world’s most populous country. India’s population is also expected to continue growing until the middle of this century, according to the report.
However, China’s population continues to decline.
“China has experienced a rapid and significant decline in births in recent years,” said Patrick Garland, head of the Population Estimates and Projections Division at the United Nations Population Division.
“The changes China has undergone in the past generation are among the fastest in the world,” Garland said.
Without immigration, the United States would also face a population decline. It is one of about 50 countries projected to continue experiencing population growth due to increased immigration. The U.S. population is projected to grow from 345 million in 2024 to 421 million by the end of the century.
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A growing country is likely to exacerbate problems related to consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and other drivers of global warming. A growing population also means more people are exposed to climate risks such as droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather events that are intensified by global warming.
“Just because a challenge might emerge 60 years from now doesn’t mean it’s pointless to talk about it now,” said Dean Spears, an associate professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin.
“Decades from now, people will be talking about these new demographic changes with the same level of academic and societal concern that we are talking about today about climate change,” Spears said.
Countries where population growth is expected to continue through to 2054 include India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria. In parts of Africa, including Angola, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger and Somalia, populations are expected to double dramatically between 2024 and 2054, according to the United Nations.
But a growing population on Earth does not necessarily mean that climate change will occur faster. Most of the world’s fastest growing regions are also countries that have historically contributed the least to global warming. These regions are also typically disproportionately affected by climate change.
The report notes that life expectancy has recovered after the impact of the pandemic. Global life expectancy will be 73.2 years in 2023, up from the pandemic low of 70.9 years in 2021 and higher than the pre-pandemic level of 72.4 years five years ago. Global life expectancy is projected to reach 81.7 years in 2100.
As life expectancy increases and birth rates fall, the world’s population is ageing. Projections show that by 2080, people aged 65 and over will outnumber children under 18. By 2023, there will be almost three times as many children as people aged 65 and over.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
