Sharm El-Sheikh, November 15 (BNA): The world is getting more crowded and the two issues are related, but not as much as people might think, experts say.
On Tuesday somewhere a baby will be born to be the world’s 8 billionth, according to a projection by the United Nations and other experts, according to the Associated Press.
The Earth’s temperature has risen by nearly 0.9°C (1.6°F) since the world reached the 4 billion mark in 1974. Climate and population are a sensitive topic for scientists and officials.
While more people consuming energy, mostly from burning fossil fuels, is causing the planet to warm, the main issue is not so much how many people as a small fraction of those people cause their share of carbon pollution, many climate and population.
The world’s population is growing mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and “they are the least contributors to man-made climate change,” said Colette Rose, project coordinator at the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.
Rose said eight countries, five in Africa and three in Asia, will experience at least half of the population growth between now and 2050.
They are Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, India and the Philippines.
Worldwide population growth has slowed dramatically, Rose said, will likely peak sometime this century, and is now declining to less than 1% per year. But carbon emissions are increasing faster, 1% more this year than they were in 2021.
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