World’s Population Likely to Peak This Century, Offering Hope for Less Pressure on the Environment, UN Report Says

According to new projections from the United Nations, the global human population will likely peak at a lower level earlier than expected, which officials have said offers hope for less pressure on the environment.

The report, World Population Prospects 2024: Summary of Results, says the planet’s population is projected to keep growing in the next 50 or 60 years, peaking in the mid-2080s at roughly 10.3 billion people. That’s up from the current population of 8.2 billion.

Once it peaks, the global population will likely start to decline slowly, falling to about 10.2 billion by century’s end. The likelihood that the population will peak this century is about 80 percent.

“This represents a major change compared to projections produced by the United Nations a decade ago, when the estimated probability that global population growth would end during the twenty-first century was around 30 per cent,” the UN report said. “The size of the world’s population in 2100 is now expected to be 6 per cent smaller – or about 700 million people fewer – than anticipated a decade ago.”

One in four people on Earth currently live in a country where the population has already peaked. That’s 63 countries and areas — including China, the Russian Federation, Germany and Japan — which contain 28 percent of the global population in 2024. The population in these locations is predicted to experience a decline of 14 percent in the next three decades.

“The earlier occurrence of a peak in the projected size of the global population is due to several factors including lower than-expected levels of fertility in recent years in some of the world’s largest countries, particularly China,” the report said. “In 48 countries and areas, representing 10 per cent of the world’s population in 2024, population size is projected to peak between 2025 and 2054. This group includes Brazil, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Türkiye and Viet Nam.”

The lower population projections could have benefits for the environment, according to Li Junhua, the UN’s economic and social affairs undersecretary general.

“The earlier and lower peak is a hopeful sign. This could mean reduced environmental pressures from human impacts due to lower aggregate consumption,” Junhua said, while cautioning that “slower population growth will not eliminate the need to reduce the average impact attributable to the activities of each individual person,” as The Guardian reported.

The populations of the other 126 countries will continue to increase, meaning they will need to look into “how to minimise future environmental impacts while meeting the needs of their growing populations,” according to the UN.

Nine countries are expected to double their populations before 2054, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Angola, Niger and the Central African Republic.

“Currently, the global fertility rate stands at 2.3 live births per woman, down from 3.3 births in 1990. More than half of all countries and areas globally have fertility below 2.1 births per woman, the level required for a population to maintain a constant size in the long run without migration,” the report said.

Almost a fifth of women, including in China, have fertility rates of less than 1.4 live births, a fertility rate that is considered “ultra-low.”

For the first time last year, deaths among children under five years of age fell below five million, which is expected to either slow rates of decline or contribute to population growth in most countries in the coming decades, the report said.

People are predicted to have a life expectancy of approximately 77.4 years on average by 2054, compared with 73.3 years currently.

“By the late 2070s, the global population aged 65 and older is projected to reach 2.2 billion, exceeding the number of children under 18. By the mid-2030s, those aged 80 and over will outnumber infants (1 year of age or less), reaching 265 million,” the UN Summary of Results said. “Countries that are at more advanced stages in the process of demographic ageing should consider the use of technology to improve productivity at all ages. They should also design more opportunities for lifelong learning and re-training, support multigenerational workforces and create opportunities to extend working lives for those who can and want to continue working.”