The UN projects that world population will peak at 10.3 billion in 2084, a 2.1 billion increase from 2024. Can the world provide food, water, and other resources to 10.3 billion people? How will additional population exacerbate resource challenges and worsen climate change? This paper analyzes these questions by looking at the last 60 years and by simulating the future impact of population growth and rising incomes on food, water, energy, and CO2 emissions. Looking back, food production has increased faster than the population in all regions, and we have not experienced significant shortages in nonrenewable resources. The history of water and CO2 emissions is less encouraging, however, with declining water levels in many aquifers and global warming threatening to undermine progress in all areas. Looking forward, population growth will be concentrated in poor countries, while rich countries, with higher consumption levels and emissions, will experience population decline. Population growth is projected to significantly increase demand for food and water in coming decades but is projected to have only modest impacts on energy and CO2, with population decline in high‐emission higher income countries more than offsetting the impact of population growth in low‐emission lower‐income countries.

中文翻译：

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下一个 20 亿：世界能否养活 100 亿人？


联合国预测，世界人口将在 2084 年达到 103 亿的峰值，比 2024 年增加 21 亿。世界能否为 103 亿人提供食物、水和其他资源？人口增加将如何加剧资源挑战并加剧气候变化？本文通过回顾过去 60 年并模拟人口增长和收入增加对食品、水、能源和 CO2 排放的未来影响来分析这些问题。回顾过去，所有地区的粮食产量增长速度都超过了人口的增长速度，我们没有经历过不可再生资源的严重短缺。然而，水和二氧化碳排放的历史并不那么令人鼓舞，许多含水层的水位下降和全球变暖有可能破坏所有领域的进步。展望未来，人口增长将集中在贫穷国家，而消费水平和排放量较高的富裕国家将经历人口下降。预计未来几十年人口增长将显著增加对食品和水的需求，但预计对能源和二氧化碳的影响不大，高排放高收入国家的人口下降足以抵消低排放低收入国家人口增长的影响。