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The world’s population hit eight billion on 15 November, according to United Nations estimates.Credit: Jean-Marc Zaorski/Gamma-Rapho/Getty
According to United Nations models, the world’s population will reach eight billion people today — less than a century after the planet supported just two billion.
• Rapid growth has been driven by advances in public health and medicine, which have allowed more children to survive to adulthood. At the same time, fertility rates stayed high in lower-income countries.
• But growth is slowing, and, within a few decades, Earth’s population will begin to shrink. Today, almost half the people on Earth live in places where lifetime fertility is below 2.1 births per woman — roughly the level required for populations with low mortality to stop growing in the long run.
• Most of the projected increase in the global population between 2022 and 2050 is expected to occur in just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.
• India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023.
Reference: UN Population Division Data Portal
Source: UN Population DivisionSource: UN Population Division
A Moon lander made by a Japanese company is aiming to be the first of several private ventures to land on the lunar surface next year. ispace’s M1 lander will carry the United Arab Emirates’ first Moon rover and payloads for the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA, and will launch on a SpaceX rocket. The craft will take a circuitous route to prioritize payload over fuel — which means that it could be overtaken by other commercial missions launching in 2023. At least two landers supported by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme will launch early next year and take a more direct route. “It’s going to be a race,” says lunar-exploration specialist Abigail Calzada Diaz. “It’s going to be really fun to watch.”
NASA has confirmed the discovery of large wreckage from the space shuttle Challenger at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, off the coast of Florida in the United States. The shuttle broke up soon after taking off in January 1986 because of erosion in the seals in the solid rocket booster. All seven astronauts on board were killed. Divers looking for a plane from the Second World War as part of a TV documentary spotted the debris, and NASA verified it through video footage.
COP27 climate conference
This year’s United Nations climate summit is taking place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.Credit: Xinhua/Shutterstock
Egypt’s climate scientists are looking to policymakers to show leadership at COP27 and put their research into action. “We’re only doing research — we cannot change policies,” says Hany Mostafa, who studies sea-level rise in the Nile Delta. “We wish … to see actions not just words. We have heard enough promises in previous COP meetings.” And they say that the conference, which is being held in their home country, is raising the profile of an issue that was seen as secondary to economic and water-related problems. “Egypt hosting COP27 this year has made the climate crisis finally come to the surface,” says Mohamed Salem Nashwan, who studies regional climate change. “But I am afraid that by the end of COP27, things will return to the way they were before.”
TODAY AT COP27?
The mood in Sharm El-Shiekh today is one of perseverance. We are in the middle of a fortnight that feels very long, with the outcome still uncertain.
One issue on everyone’s minds is the fraught topic of loss and damage — funding for low- and middle-income countries that are facing irreversible climate-related destruction that they had little part in causing. Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister and the president of COP27, said today that the first-time inclusion of loss and damage on the agenda “shows that there is a definitive landing zone” on the issue. But it’s unclear where that landing zone might lie. Rich countries, including the United States, are dancing around whether such money will be given as grants or loans, or by merely re-labelling a chunk of existing aid funding.
“Loss and damage will be where this COP is seen as a success or failure,” says Nature reporter Jeff Tollefson. “Some countries might take the chance to make bold promises. Then we’ll have to see if they keep them.”
Read more: COP27 will be deadlocked if climate adaptation funding promise is broken (Nature | 5 min read)
Flora Graham, Senior Editor, Nature Briefing
Features & opinion
As the FIFA tournament kicks off, researchers are showing their skills to help soccer coaches develop players and tactics. Data analysis now helps to steer everything from player transfers and the intensity of training, to targeting opponents and recommending the best direction to kick the ball at any point on the pitch. Meanwhile, footballers face the kind of data scrutiny more often associated with an astronaut.
Today is my first full day at COP27 in Egypt, and as I write this I’m wearing a scarf in a freezing climate-controlled conference centre when it’s a balmy 23 ℃ outside. It’s a tiny irony in a place where there is often a gulf between words and deeds. For several days, you have been writing to tell me what you would like to hear from this conference, and I hope you will keep it up. Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected].
Thanks for reading,
Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing
With contributions by Smriti Mallapaty
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