The UN says population growth underscores the need to address issues such as the climate crisis.
The world population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, as predicted by the United Nations, and India will surpass China as the most populous country in the world next year.
The UN said Monday it had taken hundreds of thousands of years for the world’s population to reach 1 billion and only 200 years to multiply by seven. In 2011, it stood at seven billion.
While the forecast from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said the world’s population is growing at the slowest pace since 1950, he said the effect of previous rapid growth would be felt in the coming years.
“[The] Spectacular growth has been driven largely by the growing number of people surviving to reproductive age, and has been accompanied by major changes in fertility rates, increased urbanization, and accelerated migration. ” , said the UN. “These trends will have far-reaching implications for future generations.
The report predicted that the world’s population will reach 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050, reaching a maximum of about 10.4 billion people in the 2080s before remaining at that level until 2100.
The UN said that while population growth was indicative of advances in health and economic development, it also stressed the need for effective policies to address some of the world’s most pressing problems.
“Progress is not universal, putting inequality in sharp relief,” he said. “The same concerns and challenges posed 11 years ago continue or have worsened: climate change, violence, discrimination.”
More than half of the projected increase in world population in the coming decades will be concentrated in just eight countries, according to the report.
He said they are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.