Population burden

Birthing new challenges, the latest United Nations statistical projection shows the global population, currently 7.2 billion, barrelling past 8.1 billion by 2025, to 9.6 billion people by the year 2050, and then almost 11 billion by 2100. For context, the world’s population passed 6 billion in 1999, and only reached 7 billion in 2011.

The new assessment is almost 800 million people higher than the previous global population estimate of 10.1 billion, which was calculated in 2011. The projected growth will be led largely by booming fertility in Africa, where the current population of about 1.1 billion may quadruple to almost 4.2 billion by the end of the century.

John Wilmoth of the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs acknowledged in a UN press conference that the new figures are only estimates, though projections based on current fertility and longevity rates are generally a reliable indicator of future population growth. The report, called World Population Prospects: the 2012 Revision, uses computational methods developed by statistics and sociology professor Adrian Raftery and his colleagues at the University of Washington.

Previous UN calculations provided high and low future population projections based on the assumption that women will have about half a child more or less than the most specific projection. That method projects an enormous range by the year 2100, from seven billion to 17 billion. The UW group’s fine-tuned methods, however, led to much more specific intervals, from nine billion to 13 billion by the end of the century.

The researchers’ refined statistical techniques allowed them to anticipate life expectancy and fertility trends based on updated UN demographic data from 2010, leading to a surprising conclusion about Africa in particular. This means India will surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by 2028, when both countries average 1.45 billion people. After that point, India will keep growing to around 1.55 billion by 2100, while China’s population will shrink to about 1.09 billion.

Meanwhile, Nigeria will leave the United States, currently the world’s third most populous nation, in the dust by 2050. Fertility rates are quickly dropping among current highly populous nations like China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil, and South Africa. However, this is unlikely to provide a solution given the massive struggle for resources already taking place in these regions.

The situation is made worse by worsening economic problems even in developed countries. Populous developing countries such as Brazil saw the worst protests in over 20 years erupt on Tuesday as people clashed with government troops over corruption and a breakdown in public services. The relentless drive for development has also resulted in clashes in countries such as Turkey where protests erupted over government attempts to pave over a park to build a mall.

This relentless struggle has affected countries as far apart as Peru and Afghanistan where local communities are battling multinational companies to protect their environment from mines. A US$ 5 billion mine project in Peru will drain an ancient lake in the Andes while one of Afghanistan’s oldest artefact sites will be lost to a copper mine.

Experts believe that the only way around this problem is to increase family planning, promote education of women and build a more equitable society. Yet these remain massive challenges for most countries around the world, paving the way for a contentious future for all.