- Sunday, March 09, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The human population on Planet Earth is nearing the eight billion mark and while this gives a boost to concerns over challenges to life, a senior official of the United Nations has cautioned the world against “population alarmism”, The Guardian reported.
The global population is projected to touch the milestone on November 15 and many have started expressing worries over the impact of the growing number of people in a world which is already facing several challenges, including inequality, climate crisis, and conflicts causing displacement.
Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (formerly United Nations Fund for Population Activities), has asked countries across the globe not to panic and focus instead on helping women, children, and marginalised people who are most vulnerable to the demographic transformation.
“I realise this moment might not be celebrated by all. Some express concerns that our world is overpopulated, with far too many people and insufficient resources to sustain their lives. I am here to say clearly that the sheer number of human lives is not a cause for fear,” she was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
The UN official warned that if governments focused on the number of people alone, they would run the risk of implementing population-control measures that had been historically found to be “ineffective and even dangerous”, The Guardian report added.
“From forced sterilisation campaigns to restrictions on family planning and contraception, we are still reckoning with the lasting impact of policies intended to reverse, or in some cases to accelerate, population growth,” she said.
“And we cannot repeat the egregious violations of human rights … that rob women of their ability to decide whether [or] when to become pregnant, if at all. Population alarmism: it distracts us from what we should be focused on.”
Amid the growing population, the pace of growth has also receded because of a slump in birthrates. In the late 1960s, it had touched a recorded peak at just over two per cent but now, it has come down to below one per cent.
The UN estimates that about 60 per cent of people live in countries with fertility levels that are below the recognised replacement level (when a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next) of an average of 2.1 births for every woman, the report said.
On the other hand, just eight countries, including Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Philippines, are predicted to account for half of all population growth by 2050.
One of them — India — is expected to go past China next year and become the world’s most populous country.
