Around 12 years ago, I received a tee-shirt from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) that said “welcome to the world of 7 Billion”. I still wear this occasionally and some people even ask me what it means.
This tee-shirt was printed to mark the occasion of the world population reaching seven billion people, which was unthinkable just a few decades ago. Yet on Tuesday (15), the world will reach a population of eight billion. The United Nations has declared this day as the “Day of Eight Billion”.
Astoundingly, the world has added one billion more people in just 12 years. This unprecedented growth is due to the gradual increase in human lifespan owing to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine, though the recent Covid pandemic claimed almost seven million lives worldwide. The high population growth is also the result of high and persistent levels of fertility in some countries.
The next population milestone (Nine Billion) will only be reached by 2037, which indicates that population growth is slowing down. This could be indeed so, because of very low fertility rates in countries such as Korea and Japan. Many of these countries are trying to augment their reproductive age populations with migrants from other countries.
Equal distribution of resource required
Eight billion is not an unbearable number by any means. The United States or Australia could easily host this number with room to spare. What is required is the equal distribution of resources including food to this vast population spread around the world. This is not happening right now as the world is divided into two halves – the Global North and the Global South, with the former enjoying most of the resources and facilities while the latter is mostly mired in poverty. Developing countries also have the highest populations, with India alone exceeding one billion. This compounds the inequalities.
According to the UN, countries with the highest fertility levels tend to be those with the lowest income per capita. Global population growth has therefore over time become increasingly concentrated among the world’s poorest countries, most of which are in sub-Saharan Africa. In these countries, sustained rapid population growth can thwart the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which remain the world’s best pathway toward a happy and healthy future.
Environmental impact
Even though population growth magnifies the environmental impact of economic development, rising per capita incomes are the main driver of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. The countries with the highest per capita consumption of material resources and emissions of greenhouse gas emissions tend to be those where income per capita is higher, not those where the population is growing rapidly.
Meeting the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise, while achieving the SDGs, critically depends on curbing unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. But slower population growth over many decades could help to mitigate the further accumulation of environmental damage in the second half of the current century. These issues are being discussed at the COP27 Environment Summit now underway in Egypt.
Challenges
A world of eight billion faces many challenges such as Climate Change, food security, energy security and housing. Climate Change, caused primarily by the emission of Greenhouse Gases mainly in the industralised countries, will drastically alter population and habitat patterns by the turn of the century if not resolved at least in the next 10 years. In this context we have frequently heard two new terms – Climate Justice and Climate Financing.
Climate justice is a concept that addresses the just division, fair sharing, and equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of climate change and responsibilities to deal with climate change. Climate finance is “finance that aims at reducing emissions, and enhancing sinks of greenhouse gases and aims at reducing vulnerability of, and maintaining and increasing the resilience of, human and ecological systems to negative climate change impacts”, as defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Standing Committee on Finance. The term has been used in a narrow sense to refer to transfers of public resources from developed to developing countries, in light of their UN Climate Convention obligations to provide “new and additional financial resources”, and in a wider sense to refer to all financial flows relating to climate change mitigation and adaptation.
These two topics have gained a lot of traction at the COP27 Summit in Egypt, given that Climate Change alone could result in millions of Climate Migrants – people who will have to leave their native places to other places in their own countries (Internally Displaced People) or to other countries (Climate Refugees) as a result of Climate Change. It is, therefore, vital for rich countries to help their poor or developing counterparts to prevent and ward off the effects of Climate Change through Climate Justice and Climate Financing mechanisms.
New agricultural techniques
Ensuring an adequate supply of food to eight billion people is no easy task. Nevertheless, even with the available arable land and some new agricultural techniques, it is possible to feed eight billion mouths. It is somewhat pathetic that some countries throw away tonnes of food in a world where 800 million go to bed hungry. The world must immediately focus on this aspect to ensure that all people everywhere have access to food. It is also essential to drastically reduce Post Harvest Losses (PHL) so that more food is available to the consumers. The world must pay more attention to the issue of food security.
War in Ukraine
The issue of energy has also come to the fore in Sri Lanka and elsewhere due to the war in Ukraine and the general downturn in the global economy. Fossil fuels except for coal are likely to run out within the next 100 years and in any case, there is a “Just Stop Oil” movement worldwide that decries the industry’s proven links to Climate Change. More countries are switching to renewable energy, with Sri Lanka planning to derive 70 per- cent of its electricity demand from solar and wind power by 2030. If the energy needs of eight billion people can be sourced from renewables such as hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and ocean waves, it will be a victory in the battle against Climate Change as well.
Millions of people worldwide have no place to call home and millions more live in slums or in other squalid housing facilities such as the line rooms in our estate areas. The recent Covid pandemic pushed millions more to poverty, exacerbating the housing crisis. Governments have a duty to ensure that everyone has a home of his or her own. In fact, this was more or less the theme of the World Habitat Day which was marked last month - “Mind the Gap - Leave No One Behind”.
Future pandemics
The world must also be wary of future pandemics, which seem to have broken through the “once every 100 years” barrier to occur more frequently. Covid was a good lesson on how not to cooperate globally in case of a pandemic, as the rich countries hogged the first run of vaccines, thereby preventing poor countries from gaining access to the crucial preventive measure.
The result was that millions of lives were lost needlessly.
The World Health Organization (WHO) must more aggressively coordinate a pandemic response taking these lessons into account. Moreover, more preventive measures for childhood diseases will be able to save millions more precious lives in Africa and Asia. A vaccine for Malaria is within sight – that alone will be a gamechanger for many African countries.
Managing a world of eight billion calls for a coordinated approach by Governments the world over, taking cognisance of the factors outlined above. The UN and its agencies should take the lead in this regard. Eight billion is just a number – what matters is how the world plans to give them all a life worth living for.