UN Seeks More Responsibility as World Population is Now 8 billion

By Adedapo Adesanya

The world population is now 8 billion, signalling major improvements in public health that have lowered the risk of death and increased life expectancy but the United Nations has urged shared responsibility to protect people and the planet, starting with the most vulnerable.

In a statement, the UN Secretary-General, Mr António Guterres, said, “Unless we bridge the yawning chasm between the global haves and have-nots, we are setting ourselves up for an 8-billion-strong world filled with tensions and mistrust, crisis and conflict.”

While the world’s population will continue to grow to around 10.4 billion in the 2080s, the overall rate of growth is slowing down. The world is more demographically diverse than ever before, with countries facing starkly different population trends ranging from growth to decline.

Today, two-thirds of the global population lives in a low fertility context, where the lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman. At the same time, population growth has become increasingly concentrated among the world’s poorest countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Against this backdrop, the UN says the global community must ensure that all countries, regardless of whether their populations are growing or shrinking, are equipped to provide a good quality of life for their populations and can lift up and empower their most marginalised people.

On her part, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director, Dr Natalia Kanem, said, “A world of 8 billion is a milestone for humanity – the result of longer lifespans, reductions in poverty, and declining maternal and childhood mortality. Yet, focusing on numbers alone distracts us from the real challenge we face: securing a world in which progress can be enjoyed equally and sustainably.

“We cannot rely on one-size-fits-all solutions in a world in which the median age is 41 in Europe compared to 17 in sub-Saharan Africa. To succeed, all population policies must have reproductive rights at their core, invest in people and the planet, and be based on solid data.”

The UN noted that while the development represents a success story for humanity, it also raises concerns about links between population growth, poverty, climate change and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The relationship between population growth and sustainable development is complex. Rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combatting hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more difficult. Conversely, achieving the SDGs, especially those related to health, education, and gender equality, will contribute to slowing global population growth.

“Relatedly, although slower population growth–if maintained over several decades–could help to mitigate environmental degradation, conflating population growth with a rise in greenhouse gas emissions ignores that countries with the highest consumption and emissions rates are those where population growth is already slow or even negative.

“Meanwhile, the majority of the world’s population growth is concentrated among the poorest countries, which have significantly lower emissions rates but are likely to suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change.”

Business Post reports that it took about 12 years for the world population to grow from 7 billion to 8 billion, but the next billion is expected to take approximately 14.5 years (2037), reflecting the slowdown in global growth. The world’s population is projected to reach a peak of around 10.4 billion people during the 2080s and to remain at that level until 2100.