The world’s eight billionth resident has been born today, according to projections by the United Nations Population Division.
The global population has reached eight billion – three times the size it was in 1950 – and although there are more people on Earth than ever before because we’re living longer, population growth is at its slowest rate in more than 70 years.
In 2020 the global population growth rate fell below 1%. This is largely due to a reduced birth rate, with women having fewer children due to widespread contraception and better education and mobility for women and girls.
The global population is also getting older – 10% are aged over 65, and this will increase to 16% by 2050.
By 2050 the number of over-65s will be twice that of those under five.
Where is it growing the fastest?
The two fastest-growing regions in the world are East and Southeast Asia, home to 2.3 billion people, and central and South Asia, which has 2.1 billion people.
China and India are the joint-most populated countries in the world, with 1.4 billion people each.
Based on UN projections, India will surpass China for the first time next year.
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More than half of the projected increase up to 2050 will be concentrated in eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
Countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to contribute more than half of the increase anticipated through 2050.
The biggest increases will come specifically from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania, with both populations doubling in the next 30 years.
Elsewhere in Africa, the biggest surges will be in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Egypt.
In Asia outside India and China, the biggest growth will happen in Pakistan and the Philippines.
More generally, 46 of the least-developed countries in the world will have the fastest-growing populations between now and 2050.
Most of this growth (two-thirds) will be driven by what has already happened – and the youthful structure of the population.
Where is the population shrinking?
The world population is growing more slowly than it has in decades due to long periods of low fertility.
More than two-thirds of people live in countries where women have 2.1 children or fewer.
This is roughly the level that would produce zero growth worldwide.
The population of 61 countries will decrease by 1% or more between now and 2050 – either due to decreased birth rates or increased levels of migration.
The war in Ukraine is having a huge impact on its population size – with projections showing it will have lost more than 20% of its population by 2050.
Four other central and eastern European countries – Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Serbia – will experience similar population decreases in the next three decades.
Overall life expectancy fell from 72.8 before the pandemic in 2019 to 71 last year.
COVID’s impact was not the same for every region, however.
Central and southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean were hit the most – with life expectancy decreasing by around three years.
But in Australia and New Zealand, which both shut their borders and pursued a “zero COVID” policy for most of the pandemic, life expectancy increased by 1.2 years due to a decreased risk of dying from other causes during successive lockdowns.
Coronavirus may have resulted in some short-term reductions in pregnancies, but there was no evidence of an overall decline, UN experts said.
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Overpopulation in Nigeria
What’s next?
The global population will continue to grow – to around 8.5 billion people by 2030 and 9.7 billion by 2050.
It will start to peak at around 10.4 billion people in the 2080s and remain at that level until 2100.
Australia, New Zealand, the rest of Oceania, North Africa and Western Asia will still be growing in population by the end of this century.
But the rest of the world, including Europe and North America, will have reached their peak and started to decline before the year 2100.
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said of the eight billion milestone: “This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognise our common humanity and marvel at advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates.”
But he added: “At the same time, it is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another.”
Syria’s de facto leader has reached an agreement with the heads of rebel factions to dissolve their groups and work under the country’s defence ministry, his new administration says.
Ahmed al Sharaa, the head of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) group which toppled Bashar al Assad‘s regime earlier this month, met with the leaders of several of the rival factions that have been vying for influence in the country for years in the Syrian capital Damascus.
Those in attendance said their groups would dissolve, according to a statement from the new government.
The statement did not make clear which groups attended, but Syria has factions made up of Muslim Kurds and Shi’ites, as well as Syriac, Greek and Armenian Orthodox Christians, and the Druze community.
However, one major group, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), did not join the meeting in Damascus and has not agreed to dissolve.
It comes as Al Sharaa attempts to end years of civil strife and armed conflict – with the leader telling Western officials that his new government will not seek revenge against the former regime nor repress any religious minority.
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What can Syrians expect from HTS?
SDF launches fresh counter-offensive as fighting continues
Despite many groups agreeing to dissolve, fighting continues in the north of Syria.
The SDF, which in 2021 was estimated to have some 100,000 members, is not one of the groups set to dissolve and fall under the Syrian defence ministry.
On Tuesday it announced it had instead launched a fresh counter-offensive against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) to take back areas it previously controlled near Syria’s northern border.
Clashes between the SDF and the SNA have intensified since the fall of the Assad regime at the start of the month, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says dozens from both sides have been killed.
The SDF is one of the US’s key allies in the country, and is frequently used by Washington to counter a resurgence of the so-called Islamic State in Syria.
The SNA, which helped topple the Assad regime, capitalised on the fall of the previous government by quickly launching an offensive and capturing the key city of Manbij and the areas surrounding it.
Since Monday and following overnight fighting, the SDF has recaptured some villages and is just seven miles from the centre of Manbij, according to reports from commanders and rights groups.
Hundreds of people have protested in Christian areas of the Syrian capital of Damascus after a video emerged showing hooded fighters setting a Christmas tree on fire elsewhere in the country.
“We demand the rights of Christians,” demonstrators chanted as they marched through the city on Christmas Eve.
The overthrow of Bashar al Assad by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a group once aligned with Al Qaeda – has sparked concerns for religious minorities in Syria, but the group’s leader has insisted that all faiths will be respected.
The protests erupted after a video spread on social media showing fighters torching a Christmas tree in the Christian-majority town of Suqaylabiyah, near the city of Hama.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the men were foreigners from the Islamist group Ansar al Tawhid.
A demonstrator who gave his name as Georges said he was protesting “injustice against Christians”.
“If we’re not allowed to live our Christian faith in our country, as we used to, then we don’t belong here anymore,” he said.
A religious leader from HTS, the leading rebel group in the coalition that toppled Assad, claimed that those who set the tree on fire were “not Syrian” and promised they would be punished.
“The tree will be restored and lit up by tomorrow morning”, he said.
A Russian cargo ship that Ukraine claims was sent to Syria to collect weapons has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, according to officials in Moscow.
Two crew members are missing after an engine room explosion sank the Ursa Major between Spain and Algeria, the foreign ministry said. Fourteen other crew were rescued and taken to Spain.
Ukraine’s military intelligence claimed yesterday that the ship, previously called Sparta III, had been sent to Syria to remove weapons and military equipment after the fall of Bashar al Assad.
In a post on Telegram, the agency said the ship broke down near Portugal but the crew were able to “fix the problem and continue through the Strait of Gibraltar”.
It shared a picture of Sparta III, though referred to the ship in the statement as Sparta. There is another Russian ship in the Mediterranean called Sparta, so it is not fully clear which vessel the agency was referring to.
Ship tracking data from the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) shows the Ursa Major departed from the Russian port of St Petersburg on 11 December. It was last seen sending a signal at 10.04pm GMT on Monday between Algeria and Spain.
On leaving St Petersburg it had indicated that its next port of call was the Russian port of Vladivostok.
The operator and owner of the ship is a company called SK-Yug, part of shipping and logistics company Oboronlogistics, according to LSEG data.
Assad fled to Moscow from Syria earlier this month after rebels captured the capital of Damascus in a lightning offensive that brought his family’s five-decade rule to an end.
The Kremlin has long been an ally of Assad, who gave Vladimir Putin a Mediterranean seaport and a nearby air base in Syria in return for military support during the country’s civil war, which began in 2011.
Four years later, Russia intervened directly in the civil war and launched its first airstrikes in the country after Islamic State fighters seized the historic city of Palmyra. This proved to be a turning point in the conflict.
A year later, Syrian troops, backed by Russia and Iran, recaptured Aleppo – a significant blow to the rebels.
But in recent weeks Russia has been pulling back its military from the frontlines in northern Syria and the removal of Assad has also thrown the future of Moscow’s bases in the country – the Hmeimim airbase in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility – into question.