We live in a world of relentless change.
Huge migrations of people to new mega cities
filling soaring skyscrapers
and vast slums.
Ravenous appetites for fuel and food,
unpredictable climate change
and all this in a world where the population is still growing.
Should we be worried?
Should we be scared?
How to make sense of it all?
7 billion people now live on this planet of ours. Isn't it beautiful?
But when some people think about the world and its future, they panic!
Others prefer not to think about it all.
But tonight I’m going to show you how things really are.
My name is Hans Rosling. I’m a statistician at….
NO, NO, NO, NO! Don’t switch off!
Because with the latest data from all countries I’m going to show you the world in a new way.
I’m going to tell you how world population is changing
and what today’s data tell us about how the future of the world will be.
We undeniably face huge challenges
but the good news is that the future may not be quite as gloomy
and that mankind is already doing better than many of you think!
Don't Panic!
The Truth About Population
with professor Hans Rosling
Babies.
Each one a blessing.
But many people think population growth is out of control.
Some even talk of a population bomb!
Are they right?
So where are we with population today? And how did we get here?
I am going to tell you a history about everyone who ever lived!
Well, at least during the last some 1000 years.
Here we go.
I give you 2 axes.
This is time in years, and this one here is world population in billions.
In the year 10,000 BC, when the first people where becoming farmers, then the archeologists estimate
that the world population was only 10 million.
Imagine: 10 million! That’s is like Sweden today!
A world of only Swedes!
But then, as the millennia passed by, more farmers, food and people, and great empires could emerge.
Egypt, China, India, and finally Europe.
And population continued to grow, but very slowly.
And I stop here, at the year 1800.
Because it was in 1800 that the world population became 1 billion.
Imagine… All that time, the population growth was just a tiny fraction of a percent, through thousands of years.
But here in 1800, with the industrial revolution, everything changed and population started to grow faster.
In little more than 100 years, it reached 2 billions.
And then, when I was in school, it was 3 billion.
And many people said: ‘The planet can not support more people.’ Even experts said that.
But what happened was this...
We became 4 billion… 5 billion… 6 billion… 7 billion!
Imagine… More than half of the world population have been added during my lifetime.
And the number is still rising.
Most of the population growth, in recent years, has been in Asian countries.
Like here, in Bangladesh, where the population has tripled during my lifetime.
From 50 million to more than 150 million.
It is now one of the most densely populated countries in the world.
Some 15 million already live in the very crowded capital Dhaka.
People here, whether in the city or the countryside, are intensely concerned about the size of families.
But a new Bangladesh is emerging…
Like the Khan family. Mom Taslima, daughters Tanjina and little Sadia.
And dad Hannan.
Women take agest to get ready, men don't take as long.
If you're going to wipe it off with your hands, why put it on?
Both Taslima and Hannan come from large families themselves.
But they’ve decided to have just 2 children.
In Bangladesh there's slogan you hear everywhere.
"No more than two kids - one is even better!"
It's lucky I only have two kids.
If I had more I couldn't afford it.
With two kids, I can buy what they want.
My pockets are empty now!
Taslima and Hannan are part of a cultural shift away from big families.
And for Taslima, it has also become a job.
She works for the government Family Planning Service
which employs women like her in every village.
She goes door-to-door, to try to help others to have smaller families too.
When was your last period?
It was on the 22nd.
So you're not using any method of contraception?
Won't it be a problem if you conceive?
I don't get pregnant easily.
But you already have two children.
I don't have time to go to the clinic.
Taslima offers advice, moral support and most importantly,
a range of contraceptives.
You've got three daughters - do you really want to have any more kids?
It's up to the father.
You're the one giving birth, why is it up to him?
You have to go through the pain, he doesn't.
Who has to go through the pain?
I go through the pain, but if he wants a boy what can I do?
Here's the pill, take them when you start your period
It can be hard to get through to them when they're less educated.
But gradually we're getting the message across.
So how successful has Taslima and Bangladesh been in reducing fertility rate?
That is the number of babies born per woman.
In Sweden we set up the Gapminder Foundation
to make the world’s data available in a way that everyone can understand.
So I can show you the situation in Bangladesh and what has happened.
Here, a horizontal axis, babies per woman.
All the way from 1 to 2…. 7 to 8.
and here a vertical axis, that is lifespan,
life expectancy, how many years a newborn can expect to live.
From 30 all the way up to 90.
Now… we start in 1972
a very important year for Bangladesh, the first full year of independence.
That year, Bangladesh was over there
and they had on average 7 babies per woman
and lifespan was less than 50 years.
So what has happened after independence?
Has life become longer in Bangladesh? Have children become fewer?
Here is the data. I start Bangladesh
Indeed, life is getting longer and babies, fewer… 6… 5…
and life even longer… 4…3…
and they land now almost in 2. It’s 2.2. And the lifespan is 70.
It’s absolutely amazing! In 40 years, Bangladesh has gone
from 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2…
It’s a miracle that has happened in Bangladesh!
But is it only in Bangladesh? Well, I will show you the whole world.
I will go back 50 years in time, to 1963.
Here are all the countries.
These green ones are America, north and south. The yellow are Europe, east and west.
Blue is Africa, north and south of the Sahaara. And red is Asia, and we include Australia and New Zealand.
The size of the bubble shows the size of the population. Look:
The big ones over there are China and India. And Bangladesh is just behind.
In 1963 the average number of babies born per woman in the world was 5.
But it was a divided world… can you see that?
These countries over here, the developed countries, had small families and long lives.
And then there were the developing countries, and they had large families and short lives.
Very few countries were in between.
But now we will see what has happened.
I start the world!
Here we go…
You can see China, the big bubble, is getting better health
and then they start family planning, they move along to smaller families.
The big green, look at Mexico, it is coming there!
This is Brazil, also the green in Latin America.
And here India is following. The big red bubbles are Asian countries going this way.
Many Africans are still with ‘many babies born per woman’.
And then Bangladesh over there overtakes India on its way to the small family.
And now almost all countries go up to this part, even Africa now starts to move up.
Oooh! That was the earthquake in Haiti!
And now everyone ends up there. What a change we have!
Today, the average in the world is 2.5
It used to be 5 fifty years ago.
The world has changed: the average number of babies born per woman has gone from 5 to 2.5
And it is still decreasing…. What a big change!
People would think that Bangladesh and countries like that are some sort of epicenter of a population bomb.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
To me, health workers like Mrs. Taslima and their colleagues,
who have taken their countries from this side… all over… in a few decades
to much better health and small families, they are the heroes of our time!
It is an amazing change that has happened.
We no longer live in a divided world.
But how much do people know about this amazing change?
At Gapminder we not only show data, we also measure how much people know or don't know about the world.
So we did the first survey in Sweden. The results were depressing!
We did our second survey in Britain. We had high hopes, because the British had been all over the place.
We thought we would get good results here.
The first question we asked was: how many babies do women have on average in Bangladesh?
And we gave four alternatives: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 or 5.5
This is the result of the British survey.
But you know the right answer: it’s 2.5
Only 12 percent of the British got it right.
So we thought that perhaps it was those with low education who dragged down the result.
So we segmented those who had been to the fine British universities and had an university degree.
And here they are. This is the result.
If anything, they did worse!
So now you may conclude that the British lack knowledge about the world.
No, no!
What if I would have asked this chimp and his friends?
I would have written the different answers on bananas and let them pick one banana each.
This result I would get.
Of course chimps know nothing about Bangladesh.
But by pure randomness, they would pick twice as many correct answers as the British.
More than half of the British people think it’s 4.5 or more.
The problem here is not lack of knowledge, it is preconceived ideas.
The British can not even imagine, cannot even guess
that women in Banglash have 2.5 babies in average. And it is really 2.2 already.
This is what the British don’t know: that Taslima and her family are the norm in Bangladesh, the most common family size.
And it’s not only there, it’s all over the world. In Brazil, 2 child families.
Vietnam, 2 child families.
And even in India, the most common family size is 2 children today.
And also if you go to the African continent, you go the big cities like Addis Ababa.
There are less than 2 children per woman in Addis Ababa.
There can be Muslin, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian…
There is not one religion, not one culture, not one continent
where 2 child families can not happen.
This change from big families down to 2 child families
is one of the most important things that have happened in the world during my lifetime.
It is unprecedented in human history!
Here we are, back in Bangladesh.
Let’s find the reasons behind this historic and continuing shift from large to small families.
Almost all girls in Muslim Bangladesh, like 15-year-old Tanjina, go to school today.
The government now even pays families money to keep their daughters on at secondary level.
At Tanjina’s school boys are now outnumbered by girls.
What type of family is this?
A big family!
Will they be short of food?
You could hardly miss the point of this lesson.
What type of family is this?
Will they face any difficulties?
No!
Education is effective and there are also new opportunities for Bangladeshi women.
Despite continuing inequalities, there are more jobs and Tanjina is aiming high.
I love going to school
In my mother's day, they used to get married young
They had no chance to study
But now we can have big dreams of becoming a doctor or an engineer
More and more young women here are seeing how different things could be for them.
I can't imagine how you got married at 17
I couldn't dream of getting married in two years' time
It's impossible
We didn't understand back then
But people know better now
So what age are you thinking of getting married?
Twenty five
I'll finish my education and get a job
I'll become a doctor and get married after that
You're very smart!
It is wonderful to see Taslima so full of hope for a bright future for her two daughters.
But one essential transformation underpins the change in Bangladesh.
It’s a dramatic improvement in child survival.
It’s Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting and reflection.
At this auspicious time, Hanan is helping his parents to tend the family graveyard.
Press the soil down with your hands
Three of Hannan’s siblings died when they were very young. They are buried here.
They died of measles
We cried so much, it was so sad
If doctors had been there they could have been treated
One might have survived
How can I forget? I will remember them as long as I live
Back when Hannan’s parents where a young couple,
1 in 5 children in Bangladesh died before they reached 5 years of age.
All families lived with a constant fear of losing one or more children.
You'd carry on having one child after another
Then if one died, you wouldn't have just one left
That's how it was
We didn't think we were having too many children, or what their future would be
In the last few decades Bangladesh has made great progress in basic health, particularly in child survival.
Vaccines, treatments of infections and better nutrition and hygiene
have all saved the lives of millions of children.
And as parents have come to see that all their children are now likely to survive,
the biggest obstacle to family planning has at last gone.
Even in the slums of Dhaka, women now have on average just 2 children.
Child survival drives everything.
Let’s go back into history.
Why did the world population grow so slowly before 1800?
Throughout history, all historical records show us that, on average
2 parents got more or less 6 children.
But that looks as a very fast population growth. So why didn’t it grow?
Because 1… 2… 3… 4 of the children died before growing up to become parents themselves.
People in the past never lived in ecological balance with nature,
they died in ecological balance with nature.
It was utterly tragic!
But with the industrial revolution, this changed.
Better wages, more food, tapped water, better sanitation, soap, medical advances....
So from all these advances, why did the population grow? Was it because they got more children?
No! In 1963 when I was at school, actually the number of children per woman had decreased a little in the world, to 5.
And the reason for the fast population growth was the improved children survival.
4 survived at that time.
But still 1 out of 5 died, that was still terrible.
It’s only in the recent decades that most countries have taken big leaps forward in child survival and in family planning.
So that we are now approaching the new balance.
And it’s a nice balance: 2 parents on average get 2 children that survive.
We have families in a very happy balance.
This is the most normal family situation in the world today.
And what does it mean for the future here?
I will show you the best projection into the future,
from the finest demographers we have, at the Population Division of the United Nations.
And it looks like this.
It is going to continue first, up to 8… then it goes up to 9… and then it goes here…
But see: it’s slowing down!
By the end of the century it is becoming more flat there.
And if I do a close-up on this, you can see
that we are expecting a ’slowing down’ and the end of fast population growth.
But of course this is a projection that has a certain degree of uncertainty.
But we are sure that we are at the end of fast population growth within this century.
It is all due to a remarkable effect of the falling fertility rate.
Look here. If we go back into this
I will show this by showing you the number of children in the world.
The number of children from 0 to 15 years of age.
Here they come. Look:
The number of children there increased slowly… and then it also increased rapidly…
So by the turn of the century here
there were 2 billion children in the world.
To me that was an important year because that was when Doris was born. That’s my first grandchild.
She was born at a very special time for children in the world.
Because the specialist demographers estimate that from this year
the number of children in the world will continue like this.
It will not increase any longer.
By the end of the century we will still have 2 billion children in the world.
When Doris was born was when the world entered into the age of peak child.
The number of children are not increasing.
Now, this will confuse you.
Because… how can the total population grow like this, if the children don’t increase?
Where will all these adults come from?
And to explain that I have to leave this fancy digital stuff
and show you real powerful educational material we have developed.
I will show you the world population, ladies and gentleman...
in the form of foam blocks.
One block is 1 billion.
And that means that we have 2 billion children in the world.
Then we have 2 billion between 15 and 30 years of age.
These are rounded numbers.
We have 1 billion of 30 to 45 years of age,
we have 1 billion of 45 to 60 years of age
and then we have my block: 60 years and older. We are here on top.
This is the world population today.
You can see that there are 3 billions missing here.
Only a few of them are missing because they have died.
Most of them are missing because they were never born.
Because before 1980 there were much fewer children born in the world
because there were fewer women giving birth to children.
So this is what we have today.
Now what will happen in the future?
Do you know what happens to old people like me?
They die!
Yes! There was someone here who works in hospitals.
So… they die!
The rest grows 15 years older and have 2 billion children.
These ones are now old, time to die.
And then these ones grow 15 years older and they have 2 billion children.
This one die and the rest grow 15 years older and have 2 billion children.
Ah!
Without increasing the number of children,
without increasing the length of life,
we have 3 billion people more by this big and inevitable fill up of adults.
which happen just when the large young generations grow up.
Now there is one more detail, which is good news for the older ones here, like me.
It is estimated that the old people will live a little longer.
So we have to add 1 billion more for the old here on the top.
And I’m desperately hoping that I will be part of that group.
Because then I can live long and read annual statistics as they come, reporting every year…
But when I talk to many fine environmental activists, who have a good concern about the environment
they very often tell me ‘we have to stop population growth at 8 billion’.
When I then talk to them… first, they don’t know that we have reached peak child.
and then they are completely unaware that most of the remaining population growth is an inevitable fill up of adults.
So we will end up with more or less this amount of people.
So we know how many billions there will be. But what about where they live?
Now and in the future.
There you have the world and here are the 7 billion.
Out of the 7 billion, 1 live in the America, north and south together.
1 in Europe, 1 in Africa,
and 4 in Asia.
This is nowadays. But how to remember this?
I have a simple way of remembering this: I put up the numbers like this
and then I say this is the pin code of the world: 1114.
Now, what will happen up to mid-century?
That we know fairly well.
Europe… no increase. In fact, the European population is decreasing.
In America, a little more people. Mainly retired people in Latin America,
So it makes no difference, it's almost the same.
In Asia we will have 1 billion more.
and then the population growth in Asia is over.
In Africa, in the next 40 years, the population will double to 2 billion.
Now… to the end of the century
Well… we know quite well: no more people in Europe, no more in America, no more in Asia…
But Africa is set, as we have data today, for another doubling.
So there will be 4 billions in Africa.
At 2100, and probably the final pin code will be 1145.
So in 2100 there will be quite a different world.
The people who live in what I call the old west,
in west Europe and North America, will by then be less than 10 percent of the world population.
80 percent of the world population will be living in Asia and Africa.
But will there be resources enough to sustain them?
Well, this will be a huge challenge and nothing will come automatically.
But my take is that it is possible for all these billions to live well together.
Certainly it's easy to see the potential for a prosperous and peaceful Asia, with 5 billion people.
Japan, South Korea and others are already rich.
Following them on the road to wealth, are larger and larger parts of China, India, Indonesia and many other Asian countries.
Even in poorer Asian countries, more and more are getting a decent life.
But what about a future Africa, of as much as 4 billion?
Won’t most of them be living in terrible poverty?
I have seen extreme poverty in Africa.
30 years ago I spent the 2 most intense years of my life working as medical doctor
in one of the poorest countries, Mozambique, on the east coast of Africa.
Mozambique had just become independent after a long war against the colonial power Portugal.
My job was to be 1 of 2 doctors, we were both foreigners, for 300,000 people.
And this was the hospital. My wife was also there working as a midwife.
This is the entire staff of the hospital.
Those with white coats had the chance during the colonial period to get a professional training of at least one year.
The others… many of them couldn’t even read or write.
But they all worked with such dedication and motivation!
But the patients came with the worse diseases of extreme poverty
and our resources were often not enough,
and especially my skills as a young doctor, did not meet the need of the patients.
Mozambique is still today a very poor country.
But things have improved immensely since I was there, 30 years ago.
For a start, there is now a brand new hospital in the town where I worked 30 years ago.
The new, much bigger hospital has 15 doctors and 11 of them are Mozambicans.
All the staff are now well trained.
The director of the hospital is Dr. Cashimo, the obstetrician.
Everything indicates that…
it's going to be…
twins!
The transformation here is amazing to me!
We have accident and emergency…
and paediatric and orthopaedic surgery
We have big laboratories and a pharmacy that works 24 hours
They routinely save women in child birth with cesareans, something that was impossible when I was there.
Nowadays we can do it here, with a professional team…
in an operating room equipped as well as anywhere else in the world
Everything has improved so much.
Those born in Mozambique today should have a much brighter future!
Not just because of better health, but a booming economy too
with busy ports and markets
and new industries with lots of new jobs.
I know you might be thinking that this good news is just about cities and towns.
And it’s true!
The worse challenge is in the rural areas, where most people live.
But things are changing here too.
Deep in rural northern Mozambique lies the district of Mogovolas.
This is home for Olivia, Andre and their young family.
Like so many other poor people in the world, Olivia and Andre are farmers.
reliant on what they grow for what they eat.
It’s 4 a.m. and the day’s tasks beckon.
Andre heads straight to the fields.
Olivia first goes to fetch water.
Both have to walk miles to get anywhere.
It takes me two hours to get there
When it's busy it might take two hours
When I get back I'm tired and hungry
With no other means of transport, everything has to be carried.
Olivia and Andre have 8 children.
Fertility rates are still high in much of rural Africa.
And it’s the poorest families who have the most mouths to feed.
Anything this family can spare, they will sell.
I'm really struggling
I plant all kinds of crops but even with all the crops I grow…
I still don't make enough money to provide for my children
Yet economic growth is slowly trickling into the countryside.
I saved up for three years to get this roof for my house
Now Andre has set his sights on one thing he believes will change everything.
I desperately need a bicycle. I can't get anywhere without one
Bicycles can make a huge different to the lives of the rural poor.
They save hours everyday and get so much more done.
With a bicycle they can carry much heavier loads to the market.
and earn more money.
They can travel to find work
and if they get sick, they can reach a health clinic in time.
If I get a bicycle I'll be so happy
Because a house without bicycle is not a home
Andre and Olivia have been putting money away for 2 years. They haven’t quite enough yet.
Everything now depends on the sesame seeds, which they are just harvesting.
If they get can get a good price, they might just make it.
Andre and Olivia live in one of the poorest countries.
And they live in the rural area, which is the poorest part of that country.
So how many people are there in the world living like them? And how many are there that are poor?
I’m going to show you this yardstick.
Very simple. Poor… and … rich.
Here I have all the 7 billions again.
They are in a very simplified way, lined up there from the poorest to the richest.
Now, how much does the richest billion earn here, in dollars per day?
Let's look here.
Oh… oohhh…
It’s coming up, it’s coming up….
Ooh, yoi-yoi, yoi-yoi...
I can’t even reach. $100 a day.
Then let's look at the middle billion. How much do they earn?
It will come just yet…. Just $10.
And then I go over here to the poorest billion. How much to they get?
Well…
Just $1.
This is the difference of the world today.
The economists draw a line, which they call the line for extreme poverty.
A little above $1.
That’s when you hardly can have enough food to feed the family, you can not be sure that you have food all days.
1 billion is clearly below that still.
and second billion is sort of divided by that line.
And then the others are above it.
The poorest people can hardly afford to buy shoes.
and when they get shoes… the next thing they will save for is bicycle.
This is where Andre and Olivia are.
And after bicycle, you will go for the motorbike.
And then after the motorbike, it’s the car.
And I remember when my family got the first car, it was a small grey Volkswagen.
The first thing we did was to go to Norway on holiday, because Norway is so much more beautiful than Sweden.
It was a fantastic trip!
And now I’m in this group. I can go like the richest billion, we can go on holiday by airplanes.
Of course there are people who are much richer than the airplane people.
Some are so rich that they are even contemplating that they should go as tourists out into space.
And the difference in income from the airplane people to the very richest over there
is almost as big as it is from the airplane people here
all the way down to the poorest in that side.
Now, the most important to remember from this yardstick is this
To show you this I need my stepladder.
Sometimes you need some old well functioning technology also.
Here.
I can only reach up… Here they are, now I am at the top.
The problem for us living on $100 a day is that when we look down
on those who have $10 or $1 they look equally poor.
We can’t see the difference.
It looks as if everyone is living on the same amount of money.
And they say "oh, they are all poor".
No, I can assure you, because I’ve met and talked with people who live down here
and I can assure you that the people down here
they know very well how much better life would be if they would move from $1 to $10
10 times as much income.
This is a huge difference.
To understand this, this is what Olivia and Andre are trying to do now.
Each little step they take along this line here
from the shoes towards the bicycle
small as it may seem from far distance, make a huge difference in their life.
And if Andre and Olivia would get that bicycle it would speed them along to better life and better wealth up in this end.
Today, Andre and Olivia are preparing to sell the sesame crop they’ve been growing for many months.
The price used to be 25 Meticais
This year it's better
We hope to sell it for 40-45 Meticais
But Andre and Olivia will have to be careful if they are to get paid the proper price.
We've found out that some buyers have been doctoring the scales
So if we get it weighed ourselves and it's ten kilos…
… then take it to the buyers, they might tell us it's seven or eight
Andre is going to do the selling.
And for the last time, he hopes, he has to get help to transport the crop to market.
Andre now needs to keep his wits about him.
Hey, hey my friend. Do the calculations properly!
The deal is done. And Andre is happy with the price he’s got.
Now I'm going to spend my money!
It’s the moment the family have worked so hard for.
Andre’s journey to market took all morning to walk.
Now, in less than an hour, he can ride home.
You bought a bicycle!
Yes darling, I bought a bicycle!
The bicycle is put to use at once.
The children fetch water with it.
Andre carries more crops to the market
and, just as importantly, Olivia and Andre can now easily reach their lessons for adults
so they can learn better maths and how to read and write.
Now I want to save up to buy a motorbike to carry my wife and children
That's what I want next
It’s so great to see Olivia and Andre pedalling their way out of extreme poverty.
And they use the bicycle to go to literacy classes.
Education is so important for the progress of people and nations.
But how many know what has really happened with education in the world?
Time for the great British ignorance survey again
Here we go.
We asked what percent of adults in the world today are literate, can read and write?
Can I ask the audience? How many guess 20 percent? Hands up.
40 percent?
60 percent?
And 80 percent? Ah, ah, ah.
This is the result of the British sample.
By now you can use the result of the British survey to find out what the right answer is, isn’t it?
Of course, 80 percent is the right answer.
At least you were clearly better than the British average.
Yes, 80 percent the population in the world can read and write today.
Literacy is 80 percent… actually, the last figure is a little higher.
So if I would have compared that with the chimps again, you know...
once more you only get random results from the chimps.
But you get 3 times as many correct answers than you get from the British.
And now the university people
Perhaps they know this... oh, even worse.
What on earth are they teaching at British universities?
The common view about the world is outdated with several decades. The media has missed to communicate it.
But perhaps this is because the world is changing so fast.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I’m going to give you my all time favourite graph,
I’m going to show you the history of 200 countries during 200 years in less than 1 minute.
I have an axis for income. I have an axis for lifespan.
I start in 1800 and there are all the countries.
And back in 1800 everyone was down in the poor and sick corner, can you see?
Low lifespan, little money.
And here comes the effect of the Industrial Revolution.
Of course, the countries in West Europe are coming to better wealth, but are not getting much healthier in the beginning
And those on the colonial domination doesn’t benefit anything in there,
they remain there in the sick and poor corner.
And now health is slowly improving here, it’s getting up here and we are coming into the new century.
And the terrible First World War, and then the economic recession after that.
And then the Second World War.
Ooh. And now independence.
And with independence health is improving faster than it ever did in other countries here.
And now starts the fast economic catch-up of China and other Latin American countries.
They come on here you know.
And India is following there and the African countries are also following.
It’s an amazing change that has happened in the world.
You know, in the front here we have now US and UK, but they are not moving so fast any longer.
The fast movers are here in the middle.
China is moving very fast to catch up. And Bangladesh...
Look, Bangladesh is already here, now quite healthy and now starting with fast economic growth.
And Mozambique… Yes, Mozambique is back there, but they are now moving fast in the right direction.
But all this I show you are country averages.
What about people? Have people also got a better life?
I am now going to show you something which makes me very excited as a statistician.
I'm going to show you income distribution. The difference between people.
And to do that I take the bubbles back 50 years
and then we are going to look only at money.
And to do that we have to expand and adjust the axis, because the richest is so rich and the poorest is so poor,
so this will be a bigger difference than between the countries.
And now we let the country fall down here. This is the United States,
and spread to show the range within the country.
And I take down all the countries in the Americas.
And now you can see from the richest person to the poorest person.
And the height here shows you how many there are on each income level.
And now let’s take down Europe.
And on top of that I’m going to put Africa.
And finally, the region with most people, on top of everything, Asia.
Now, in 1963 the world was constituted by two humps:
first, the richest hump, it’s like a camel, isn’t it?
The first hump here with the richest is mainly Europe and the Americas.
And the poorest hump over here is mainly Asia and Africa.
And the poverty line was there.
Can you see how many people there were in extreme poverty 50 years ago?
And most of them were in Asia.
And people were saying Asia will never get out of poverty, exactly as some people are still saying about Africa today.
Now, what has happened?
I start the world.
And you can see that many people are born into poverty here, but Asia goes towards higher income
and 1 billion goes out of extreme poverty this way
and the whole shape of the world change, and that camel is dead.
It’s reborn as a dromedary.
And what you can see here, you know,
is the variation from the richest, that is most people in the middle,
and there’s a much smaller proportion of the world now in extreme poverty
but be careful, it’s still a lot of people: more than 1 billion people in extreme poverty.
Now the question is: can this ‘move out of extreme poverty’ now continue
for those in Africa and even for the new billions in Africa?
I think it’s possible, even probable, that most countries in Africa will rise out of poverty too.
It will need wise action and huge investment, but it can happen.
The many countries of Africa are not all advancing at the same pace.
A few are moving very fast, others are stuck in conflict.
But most, like Mozambique, are now making steady progress.
And what about feeding all the new African people in the future?
Yes, there are shortages today, but there is also much potential here.
Agricultural yields in Africa are just a fraction of what they could be with better technology.
And Africa’s rivers are barely tapped for irrigation.
One day Africa could hum with combine harvesters and tractors and grow food for many more billions.
And please, don’t imagine it’s just me who thinks Africa can make it.
The United Nations is about to set itself a new official goal: eliminating extreme poverty within 20 years.
Everyone understands it’s a huge challenge, but I seriously believe it’s possible.
Imagine if that would happen.
Now, what we have seen so far is that the rich end moves...
and the middle... it moves. But this poorest end is stuck.
It’s here in extreme poverty we find almost all the illiteracy.
Here we find high child mortality and still many babies born per woman.
It’s like extreme poverty reproduces itself if you don’t end it swiftly.
But Andre and Olivia, and people like that, work so hard to get away from it,
and if they only can get the right help from their government and from the world at large
with things like school, health, vaccines, roads, electricity, contraceptives,
then they will manage, but they will mainly manage by their own hard work.
Here we go… go on... follow Andre and Olivia across the line, you know.
It is possible within some decades… Yes!
But getting out of poverty is just the beginning.
People want to continue along this line to a good life.
But what does a good life mean?
For most people in the world the good life they are striving for will mean more machines and much more use of energy.
So there’s a problem. Because all this adds to one of the great threats for the future: severe climate change.
80 percent of the energy the world uses is still fossil fuels,
and the science shows that the climate may change dramatically in the future
because of the carbon dioxide emission from continuing to burn all these fossil fuels.
I’m not the best person to tell you how bad climate change will be
nor am I a specialist on how to prevent it.
What I can do is to show you data to make you understand who is the one that emits the carbon dioxide.
I will show this.
You remember the yardstick from the poorest billion to the richest billion
from the one who hardly can afford shoes to the one who flies with airplanes
Now this shows the total amount of fossil fuel used in the world during one year
coal, oil and natural gas.
And it represents more or less the total emission of carbon dioxide.
Now how much of that is used by the richest billion?
Half of it.
Now the second richest billion.
Half of what’s left.
And you understand what the third use
half of what’s left. And the others use hardly anything.
This are rounded numbers, but it clearly shows that almost all the fossil fuel is used here by the 1, 2, 3 richest billions
more than 85 percent they use.
Now the richest billion at least have stopped increasing, but we are yet to see whether they will decrease.
And in the coming decades it’s the economic growth of these 2
that will increase the fossil fuel use and the carbon dioxide emission.
Even if these ones over here come out of extreme poverty and get richer all the way to the motorbike
that doesn’t contribute much to the emission of carbon dioxide.
And regarding population growth, most of the additional billions in the next 40 years will be in this group here.
But still, if you ask people in the richest end they seem to get everything wrong.
They look down on the world from their very high emission and then they say:
“Oh, those over there, you cannot live like us, you will destroy the planet”.
You see, I find the argument from the people here catching up to be much more correct and logic.
They say: "Huh! Who are you to tell us that we can’t live like you?
You’d better change first if you want us to do it differently”.
There are many essentials to having a good life that billions in the world do not yet have.
Andre’s village and house, and so many like them, don’t even have electricity.
Mozambique has huge coal reserves
and if it and the other poorest countries build affordable new power-stations burning coal for electricity and industry
I don’t think anyone who emits more carbon should interfere.
Now, I’m going to ask you two questions that I often ask my Swedish students.
The first one is: how many of you have not travelled by an airplane this year?
Uh-huh.
Quite a few can do without flying. So the next question is:
How many of you have stayed away from washing machines and have hand washed all bedsheets,
clothes and laundry during the last year?
I thought so, no one.
Everyone who can afford to use a washing machine, even the hard core in the environmental movement.
And I still remember the day when my family got a washing machine.
It was 1st November 1952.
Grandma was invited to be the first to load the machine.
She had hand washed her entire life for a family of 9.
And when she loaded the machine she sat down on a footstool and she watched the entire programme during one hour.
She was absolutely mesmerised.
For my mother it also meant a lot of more free time to do other things.
She could read books for me, I think that’s what made me a professor.
No wonder we said thank you steel mill,
thank you washing powder factory, thank you electrical power station.
Now...
When thinking about where all this leave us I have just one little humble advice to you,
beside everything else: look at the data.
Look at the facts about the world.
And you will see where we are today and how we can move forwards with all these billions on our wonderful planet.
The challenges of extreme poverty have been greatly reduced
and it’s for the first time in history within our power to end it for good.
The challenge of population growth is, in fact, already being solved,
the number of children has stopped growing.
And for the challenge for climate change, we can still avoid the worst.
But that requires that the richest, as soon as possible,
find a way to set their use of resources and energy at a level that, step by step,
can be shared by 10 billions or 11 billions by the end of this century.
I’ve never called myself an optimist,
but I do say I’m a possibilist.
And I also say the world is much better than many of you think.
Thank you very much!