Scientists predict that the world population will decrease by 2 billion over the next 80 years
The latest study of fertility trends indicates that population growth could stop by 2050 and decline further to 6 billion by 2100.
The Club of Rome conducted this study and predicted a peak population of 8.6 billion in the middle of the century, after which it will decline by 2 billion by the end of the century.
While this population decline will help reduce the Earth's environmental problems, it will also lead to an ageing population and a lower proportion of working-age people who must provide funding for healthcare and pensions.
Researchers from Earth4All, which consists of ecologists and economists, published the findings in a working paper on 27 March. Per Espen Stoknes, director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at the Norwegian Business School, believes that the fertility rate is falling because of access to education and better healthcare for women.
This study is a continuation of the Club of Rome's 1972 Limits to Growth study. The new study's findings differ from other population projections, such as the UN's 2022 estimates, which predict that the world's population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050.
Although the new study differs from the UN's projections, some researchers believe that the decline in fertility and population growth may be due to several factors, such as changing attitudes towards the family, women's emancipation, economic growth and access to modern contraceptive methods.
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Some also fear that the decline in fertility could lead to an imbalance between the number of older and younger generations, which could create major social and economic problems in the future. However, there are various ways to address these problems, such as increasing education levels and creating favourable conditions to reduce the risk of social imbalance.
The team also investigated the link between population size and the planet's ability to support the human population. They found that, contrary to common Malthusian narratives, population size is not a key driver of climate change. Instead, they put the blame on the high level of consumption by the world's richest people, which they believe needs to be reduced.
"The main problem of humanity is the luxurious consumption of carbon and the biosphere, not population. Those places where the population is growing fastest have an extremely low environmental impact per person compared to places where the population peaked many decades ago," said Jørgen Randers, one of the model developers at the Norwegian Business School and a member of Earth4All.
Earlier, researchers from the University of Oxford concluded that the development of super-intelligent artificial intelligence will accelerate the demise of humanity.
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