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UN / WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS REVISION REPORT
STORY: UN / WORLD POPULATION PROSPECTS REVISION REPORT
SOURCE: UNTV
TRT: 1.42
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ NATS
DATELINE: 3 MAY 2011, NEW YORK CITY/ FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN building
3 MAY 2011, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. Wide shot, audience
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Hania Zlotnik, Director Population Division, DESA:
“The future of population depends very much to what will happen to the future of fertility in the world, as fertility is one of the main drivers, or rather the main driver of future population size in the world.”
5. Med shot, reporters
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Hania Zlotnik, Director Population Division, DESA:
“For all these projections in the high fertility countries, the fertility drops quite a bit. If they don’t achieve that reduction they might see their populations triple or quadruple in the future. Again the best outcome that we have for them will have their populations doubling in any case.”
7. Med shot, reporter
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Gerhard Heilig, Chief of the Population Estimates and Projections Section:
“All our projections are under the assumption that fertility on average for the world will decline. If we assume that fertility does not decline; if it stays exactly at the value it is now in each and every country, we would have almost 27 billion by 2100.”
FILE - WORLD BANK - DECEMBER 2010, INDIA
9. Various shots, street scenes in Bombay
10. Wide shot, skyline of Bombay with sea and boats
11. Med shot, women in Saris in fishing village in Bombay
12. Wide shot, street scene in suburb of Bombay
2 MAY 2009, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
13. Med shot, traffic and people
The world’s population is projected to surge past 9 billion before 2050 and then reach 10.1 billion by the end of the century if current fertility rates continue at expected levels, according to United Nations figures unveiled today (3 May).
Most of the increase will come from so-called high fertility countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa but also in some nations in Asia, Oceania and Latin America, the figures reveal.
Hania Zlotnik, Director of the Population Division, told journalists today that “the future of population depends very much to what will happen to the future of fertility”, as fertility is “the main driver of future population size in the world.”
Zlotnik noted that fertility rates are expected to drop “quite a bit” in the coming years, but if they don’t, population size might “triple or quadruple in the future” in high fertility countries.
Gerhard Heilig, Chief of the Population Estimates and Projections Section, went a step further saying that “if we assume that fertility does not decline”, the world population might reach “27 billion by 2100.”
Based on the medium projection, the number of people in the world – currently close to 7 billion – should pass 8 billion in 2023, 9 billion by 2041 and then 10 billion at some point after 2081.
But a small increase in fertility could mean a global population of as much as 15.8 billion by 2100, while a small decrease could result in an eventual overall decline in population to 6.2 billion by the end of the century.
The populations of many countries are ageing and will continue to do so as their fertility rates decline, thus, the population of countries classed as low-fertility or intermediate-fertility would peak well before the end of the century.
Life expectancy is expected to rise across all categories of countries, particularly as better treatment for HIV/AIDS cuts early deaths in many sub-Saharan African countries. Global life expectancy is projected to increase from 68 years to 81 by the years 2095 to 2100.
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