Unchecked population growth is speeding climate change, damaging
life-nurturing ecosystems and dooming many countries to poverty, experts
concluded in a conference report released Monday.
Unless birth rates are lowered sharply through voluntary family-planning
programmes and easy access to contraceptives, the tally of humans
on Earth could swell to an unsustainable 11 billion by 2050, they
warned.
The UN currently projects that global population will rise from 6.8 billion today to between 8.0 and 10.5 billion by mid-century.
The researchers said that with one and a half million more humans climbing aboard the planet every week, a recipe is looming for ecological overload, famine and broken states.
