Press release 27 February 2003

The United Nations Population Division this week published revised population projections indicating that world population will grow from today's 6.3 billion to (Medium Variant Projection) 8.9 billion by 2050.

The Optimum Population Trust believes that Earth cannot sustain a population of more than 3 billion in the long-term without causing catastrophic climate change. Our calculations of possible sustainable population sizes for different countries are now available On our website on the Eco-Footprinting: LPR page.

OPT calls for a sustainable population policy for Earth. This could be achieved with universally and freely available family planning, the encouragement of small families and balanced immigration. It is time for a Population Protocol, to enable the world to set sustainable population stabilisation and reduction targets, and for individual nations to work towards sustainable population policies for their own countries.

OPT continues to call for UK population to be stabilised and allowed to reduce to 30 million by 2121. Our alternative population projections for the UK can be seen and downloaded from the OPT Projections [UK 30 million] section of this website.

Enquiries to OPT: