A new study by the Earth4All initiative for the Global Challenges foundation forecasts the human population on Earth will peak at 9 billion in 2050. That’s less than the current UN forecast, but will it be enough to contain global warming?
After these three good news for the planet in 2022, here is already one for 2023. The human population of the planet will reach its peak sooner than expected. So we may not need to install solar panels in space to fight against global warming. Maybe…
Indeed, a new study by researchers from the international initiative Earth4All for the Global Challenges foundation has revised the forecasts for the human population downwards, using two scenarios:
- In the first scenario, if the world economy continues to follow a trajectory similar to that of the past 50 years, some least developed countries will be able to free themselves from extreme poverty and begin their demographic transition. World population will then peak at 8.8 in the middle of the century before declining to 7.3 billion in 2100.
- In the second scenario, if the world makes a “giant leap“When it comes to investing in economic development, education and health, the world’s population could peak at 8.5 billion people by 2040 and drop to just six billion by the end of the century.
The population forecast by the UN revised downwards by 2 billion
Indeed, these results are more optimistic than current United Nations estimates. Beniamino Callegari, head of the Earth4All project, states that “you have to rejoice“. The UN currently projects a world population of 9.7 billion in 2050, with a continuous increase until a peak of 10.4 billion in the 2080s. The population is then expected to gradually decline.
In just under 50 years, the world’s population had doubled to reach four billion in 1975. It doubled again, reaching 8 billion last November. This raised fears of a further doubling of the world’s population, which would reach the apocalyptic number of 16 billion inhabitants. Fortunately we are far from these forecasts.
A billion more people on the planet
However, the most optimistic spirits must be tempered. At the rate we are emitting greenhouse gases, the planet is well on its way to becoming unlivable. Thus, this study predicts that the Earth will become a “chaotic” world and for ten years, the UN has been sounding the alarm before each COP on climate change and its serious consequences on human life.
Population is the heaviest factor in global warming. A billion more humans is already an additional pressure on the limited resources of our planet and more greenhouse gas emissions. It is estimated that each human would have to reduce their annual carbon footprint to 2 tonnes to achieve the objective of keeping global warming to 2°. According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, each human emits an average of 4.4 tonnes of CO2 and each French person emits 6.7 tonnes.
