World population statistics, released yesterday, provide a stark portrait of global inequalities and their effect on scarce environmental resources. Pressure on water, land, forests and the atmosphere is severe. It will increase in line with projected population increases bringing the number of people in the world to over nine billion by 2050.
Food production will catch up with that only if there is a dramatic development of higher-yielding crops, according to the annual report of the United Nations Population Fund. The major constraining factor on population is the growing power of women to control their fertility. If women are to have only the number of children they want, population will moderate. This message is now being heard more clearly and consistently by international leaders, despite their failure to meet obligations to fund family planning.
The picture of gross inequality portrayed in this report reminds us once again how unevenly wealth is distributed throughout the world. Today 508 million people live in 31 water-stressed countries; by 2025, three billion will live in 48 of them, while by 2050, 4.2 billion people will live in countries unable to provide the minimum amount of daily water required for sustainable living. Today, 800 million people are severely malnourished and two billion more lack basic nutrition. It is estimated that half the world's population has an income of less that two dollars a day.
There are not many new facts in this UN report, but it still provides a frightening profile of how soaring population growth can affect the world's environment and its capacity for socio-economic development. Confronted with such facts, too many in the developed world are numbed into fatalistic despair rather than focused anger capable of tackling these problems.
Next year, the World Summit on Sustainable Development meets in Johannesburg. Such gatherings provide benchmarks and set goals to reduce environmental damage. This report makes a valuable contribution to the task of reminding us of the scale and intensity of the problems facing the world today.