Environmental Indicators Ireland 2025 - Global Context and Climate

In this chapter we look at a series of indicators referring to global environmental pressures from population growth, resource use and climate change. Population pressures are important from an environmental perspective as they impose a strain on resource use and increase the amount of air emissions, including greenhouse gases. The chapter shows that global greenhouse gas emissions are growing and have contributed to increasing global average temperatures. Global resource use per capita has also increased, although there is considerable inequality in resource consumption between richer and poorer countries.

1.1 World: Population 1950-2024

Global population increased by 274% from 2.5 billion to 8.2 billion between 1950 and 2024.

Africa‘s share of the World’s population doubled from 9.1% in 1950 to 18.6% in 2024, while Europe’s share decreased from 22.0% to 9.1% during the same time. Asia had the largest population share, accounting for 58.9% of the World’s total in 2024.

1.2 World: Child mortality rates 1950-2024

Global child mortality rates, which measure the number of deaths of children who die before the age of five for every 1,000 live births, have significantly decreased by 84.2% from 227 per 1,000 live births in 1950 to 36 in 2024.

In 2024, Europe had the lowest child mortality rate in the world with just four deaths per 1,000 live births before the age of five.

On the other hand, Africa had the highest child mortality rate in 2024 with 62 deaths per 1,000 live births.

1.3 World: Life expectancy at birth 1950-2024

Global life expectancy at birth increased from 46.4 years in 1950 to 73.3 years in 2024.

In Africa, life expectancy increased from an average annual of 37.2 years in 1950 to 64.0 years in 2024. However, this is still the lowest life expectancy of any region in the World. Every other World region had a life expectancy of greater than 70 years in 2024. North America had the highest life expectancy at birth that year at 79.8 years, followed by Europe at 79.3 years, both more than 15 years higher than Africa.

1.4 World: Mean near surface temperature deviations 1850-2024

Figure 1.1 shows two sets of data measuring changes in global average near surface temperatures from 1850 to 2024 – HADCRUT5 and NOAA- using 1850-1899 data as a proxy for pre-industrial levels.

A third series GISTEMP, from NASA’s Goddard Centre, is not available for 2023 and 2024.

The warmest year on record in the HADCRUT5 series from both the Hadley Centre at the United Kingdom’s Met Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States was 2024. The HADCRUT 5 temperature in 2024 was 1.52⁰ Celsius above the average 1850-1899 level; whilst the temperature in the NOAA series was 1.54 ⁰Celsius above this average.

Globally, according to the HADRUT5 and NOAA series, the ten warmest years on record since 1850 occurred in the decade between 2015 and 2024.

1.5 World: Greenhouse gas emissions 1990-2023

China was the world’s highest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 at 14 billion tonnes, up 211% from its 1990-1994 average figure and overtaking the USA. This Chinese figure accounted for 26% of the World’s total in 2023. 

Emissions from India and Brazil also increased by 160% and 16% respectively over the same period from 1990-1994 to 2023.

Emissions from the other states covered by this indicator all fell over the period from 1990-2023. The 2023 emissions for the European Union (EU27) and Japan fell by 33% and 18% respectively compared to their average emission for 1990-1994. The decline in emissions from the USA and the Russian Federation were more modest, falling by 6% and 4% respectively over this time frame.

1.6 World: Domestic material consumption per capita 2000-2023

Domestic material consumption (DMC) measures the total amount of materials used by an economy to meet the demands for goods and services from within and outside a country or region.

The average World DMC per capita increased from 9.1 tonnes per capita in 2000 to 11.6 in 2023.

Sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest resource consumption per capita in 2023 at 4.6 up slightly from 4.5 in 2000. The DMC per capita figures for Eastern and South-Eastern Asia increased sharply from 8.8 tonnes per capita in 2000 to 18.8 in 2023. DMC per capita fell for Europe, North America and Oceania between 2000 and 2023. Oceania had the highest resource consumption figure of 29.0 tonnes per capita in 2023.