The threshold of 8 billion was exceeded in the midst of the world climate conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, highlighting once again the difficulties of the rich countries most responsible for the warming of the planet and the poor countries that are asking According to Le Vife, as quoted by Rador, for help cope means more ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are the result of human activity.

Or, reminds the UN, “if demographic growth increases the impact of economic development on the environment,” “countries with the highest consumption of material resources and emissions of greenhouse gases per capita tend to be those with the highest per capita income, not those where the population is growing rapidly.”

“Our impact on the planet is determined more by our behavior than by our numbers,” Jennifer Skubba, a resident researcher at the Wilson Center, summarizes for AFP.

India vs. China

Population growth creates serious problems in countries that already have a large concentration of poor people.

“The persistence of high birth rates, which is the cause of rapid demographic growth, is both a symptom and a cause of slow development progress,” writes the UN.

Thus, India, a country of 1.4 billion people that will overtake China as the world’s most populous in 2023, will experience explosive urban population growth in the coming decades as already overcrowded megacities lack the necessary infrastructure.

In Bombay, about 40% of the population live in slums, overcrowded slums made up of makeshift shacks, most of which have no running water, electricity or sewage.

The global figures hide a huge demographic diversity. Thus, according to the UN, more than half of the population growth by 2050 will occur in only 8 countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.

And at the end of the century, the three most populous cities in the world will be African: Lagos in Nigeria, Kinshasa in DR Congo, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.