Published:

27 Mar 2023 13:40 GMT

According to the research, the world population peak will be less than 9 billion people by 2050 and then it would start to decline.

After surpassing in November of last year the 8,000 million inhabitants In the world, the projections of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Organization (UN) pointed to a constant growth that would reach 9,700 million by 2050 and 10,400 million between 2080 and 2100.

However, a new study by the organization earth4allwith the support of the Club of Rome, pointed out that the population growth trend could be modified, so that the ‘demographic bomb’ would be deactivated thanks to a decrease in the number of inhabitants during the next decades.

As detailed, by 2050 the population peak would be located below 9 billion and since then it would begin to decline.

To reach this conclusion, they took into account two models. In one of them, called ‘Too little too late’, the world continues its economic development in a similar way to the last 50 years and many countries manage to get out of the situation of extreme poverty. In this context, the researchers estimate that the world population could reach a maximum of 8.6 billion in 2050 before falling to 7 billion in 2100.

In the second, called ‘Giant Leap’, it is estimated that the population reaches 8.5 billion by 2040 and that, from that moment, go down to, approximately, the 6 billion by the end of the century. For this, an “unprecedented investment” is needed to combat poverty, particularly in education and health, as well as changes in policies for food security, energy, inequality and gender equity. In this way, extreme poverty could be eliminated by 2060, which would have an impact on world population trends.

The study points out that the difference with other models and their projections on the world population is that they had minimized the importance of “rapid economic development in low-income countries”, because “it has a big impact on fertility rates, which decline as girls have access to education and women are economically empowered and have access to better health care,” said Per Espen Stoknes, one of the study’s authors. .

In the same sense, Beniamino Callegari, the other author, added that if the countries with fewer resources “adopt successful policies for economic development” it can be expected that “the population will reach its peak sooner rather than later.”

The connection with the environment

Another point of the study referred to the relationship between the population growth and the environment and concluded that population growth is not the main cause of risks to the planet, such as climate change. In this sense, he blamed the richest 10% to destabilize the planet.

“Humanity’s main problem is luxury carbon and biosphere consumption, not population. The places where populations are increasing the fastest have extremely small environmental footprints per person compared to places that peaked in population many decades ago.” , assured Jorgen Randers, one of the Earth4All specialists, who concluded: “A good life for all is only possible if the extreme use of resources by the wealthy elite is reduced”.