The human population is now stated to have gone above the 8 billion figure, and its only taken 12 years since hitting 7 billion.
It is unfortunately a fact, that if we are to deal with the biodiversity loss, we need to stop eating into wild places on the planet. This will not happen if the population continues to grow. The fight against climate changed is less closely linked to population, as the majority of the growth occurs in the developing world. Unfortunately, at the current time as much as 152 countries around the world are considered developing, and their population is 85% of the human population (around 6.7 billion people).
Fair or not, it is not possible for all of these countries to follow the same development line as those countries in the “developed west”. This is because there is not enough carbon emissions left in the carbon budget.
At the current rate, we will hit 10 billion by 2050. Indeed while post 2050 the estimates of population growth become less clear, the prediction is that by 2100 the population will fall between 10 and 12 billion – a scary figure