Projections of a recent study imply that based on current trends, the world population will reach 8.8 billion before the middle of the century, but will decline rapidly. Thus, what has been feared as the “population ticking bomb” will not go off as expected. However, the world will be dealing with other issues equally dangerous.

The new forecasts are good news for the global environment. But researchers caution that falling birthrates alone will not solve the planet’s environmental problems, which are already serious at the 8 billion level and are primarily caused by the excess consumption of a wealthy minority.

Dwindling Population 

According to the study, declining populations will create new problems, such as a dwindling labor force and greater stress on healthcare associated with an aging society, as countries like Japan and South Korea are now going through.

Ben Callegari, one of the report’s authors, said the findings were cause for optimism – but there was a catch.

“This gives us evidence to believe the population bomb won’t go off, but we still face significant challenges from an environmental perspective. We need a lot of effort to address the current development paradigm of overconsumption and overproduction, which are bigger problems than population.”

The said projection was carried out by the Earth4All, a collective of leading environmental science and economic institutions, including the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Stockholm Resilience Centre, and the BI Norwegian Business School. They were commissioned by the Club of Rome for a follow-up to its seminal Limits to Growth study more than 50 years ago.

Policies

The report foresees existing policies being enough to limit global population growth to below 9 billion in 2046 and then decline to 7.3 billion in 2100. This, they warn, is too little too late: “Although the scenario does not result in an overt ecological or total climate collapse, the likelihood of regional societal collapses nevertheless rises throughout the decades to 2050, as a result of deepening social divisions both internal to and between societies. The risk is particularly acute in the most vulnerable, badly governed, and ecologically vulnerable economies.”

In the second, more optimistic scenario – with governments across the world raising taxes on the wealthy to invest in education, social services, and improved equality – it estimates human numbers could hit a high of 8.5 billion as early as 2040 and then fall by about a third to about 6 billion in 2100. Under this pathway, they foresee considerable gains for human society and the natural environment by mid-century.

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