Earth Policy Institute「World Population Grew by 76 Million People in 2004: 3 Million Added in the Industrial World and 73 Million in the Developing World
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During 2004, 133 million people were born and 57 million died, expanding world population by 76 million. This excess of births over deaths was concentrated in the developing countries, which added 73 million people compared with only 3 million in the industrial countries. World population, growing by 1.2 percent annually, is projected to reach 6.4 billion in 2005.
Just over 1 billion of the earth’s inhabitants live in the industrial countries of Europe, North America, Oceania, and Japan, where populations are growing on average 0.25 percent a year. Meanwhile, the other 5.2 billion people live in the less developed countries, where populations are growing at 1.5 percent annually—six times as fast.
Six countries account for half the annual increase in population, and all of these but the United States are in the developing world. India accounts for 21 percent of this growth, China 12 percent, Pakistan 5 percent, and Bangladesh, Nigeria, and the United States 4 percent each.
日本では少子化で騒いでいるけど、世界では去年一年間だけで日本の人口より多い１億3,300万人が生まれたようだ。開発途上国の人口増加率は、先進国の６倍。近未来に、水、食料、エネルギー源の奪い合いになるかも知れない。
