John Kerry, the secretary of state during Barack Obama's second term, claims that it is impossible to maintain 10 billion people on the planet. The Earth is currently inhabited by 8 billion people, and forecasts indicate that the 10-billion mark will be reached around the year 2050.
In an interview with the French public agency AFP picked up by the French public television channel France24, Kerry, who currently holds the position of U.S. special presidential climate envoy, said:
I don't think it's sustainable personally. We need to figure out how we're going to deal with the issue of sustainability and the numbers of people we're trying to take care of on the planet. I'm not recommending the population go down. I think we have the life we have on the planet. And we have to respect life and we could do it in so many better ways than we're doing now.
In addition, the former secretary of state mentioned the increased birth rate in Africa, which he considers "unsustainable":
I've been to a number of African countries where they're very proud of their increased birth rate but the fact is, it's unsustainable for life today, let alone when you add the future numbers.
What Kerry did not clarify was what plans he has to prevent humanity from reaching that figure.
