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Population Development and Climate Change - how are they linked?
Judith Stephenson, University College London
The recently launched 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects estimates that global population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050 and exceed 10 billion by 2100 - according to medium projections - with most of this growth in developing countries. Climate change is principally due to high consumption and carbon emissions in the developed countries, but its impact will be greatest on people in the developing world. Links between population and climate change are often discussed in terms of adaptation (reducing vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change) and, more controversially, in terms of mitigation (reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change). The contribution of low-income, high-fertility countries to global carbon emissions has been negligible to date, but is increasing with the economic development that they need to reduce poverty.
Although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emissions scenarios include inherent assumptions about population growth, there has been surprisingly little assessment of the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide. Inevitable demographic changes including ageing and urbanisation have not been integrated systematically into climate change science. Current debates range from catastrophic visions of conflict and scarcity to optimistic views of technological solutions. To tackle more effectively the twin challenges of climate change and poverty alleviation, we need better understanding of the historical interactions between the population, development and climate change communities, as well as more comprehensive analysis of the likely impact of demographic factors (population growth, migration, urbanization, ageing and household composition) to future climate change.
Email: judith.stephenson@ucl.ac.uk
Population and environment: anthropogenic factors of deforestation in South Karnataka, India
Sylvie Dubuc, University of Oxford
This paper analyses the deforestation process and change in the land-use in Kodagu district, South of Karnataka. The analysis is based on remote sensing (satellite) imagery analysis, land-use and population GIS-based spatial analysis and field work (field observations and interviews with actors involved in land-use dynamics). Results show a very substantial reduction of the forest cover following the liberalisation of the economy. The deforestation is mainly due to the development of commercial plantations. Results question the causal link between population growth and environmental pressure. Environmental consequences of the rarefaction of available forest as resource for the poorest is further discussed.
Email: sylvie.dubuc@spi.ox.ac.uk
Population and the environment - a causal link?
Simon Ross, Population Matters
Some environmentalists downplay the contribution of population numbers to environmental change, pointing instead to personal consumption or technological choices. However, Ehrlich's equation: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology prompts us to consider all three. Thus, Pakistan's population rose from 40 to 185 million in just 60 years. In that time, it lost two thirds of its woodland, endangering forty species and exacerbating devastating flooding. Pakistan's population is projected to reach 300 to 400 million by 2050. Similarly, half of the UK's ancient woodland has been lost or damaged since the 1930's and half of the world's mature rainforest has been lost since 1947. Improved harvesting techniques and our consumption choices are partly responsible for these reductions, but the three fold rise in world population since WWII surely contributes. World population is projected to continue to rise, from the current 7 billion to 10 billion by 2085. As the world industrialises, per capita emissions and resource consumption can only increase. Reducing populations over time to more sustainable levels would help alleviate pressure on the environment, and is achievable through four principal ways: providing the funding required for universal access to family planning; encouraging gender empowerment and social development; improving contraceptive practices; and making the environmental case that a smaller family is a sustainable family.
Email: simon.ross@populationmatters.org
Moral panic about overpopulation: a distracting campaign?
Ludi Simpson, Sylvie Dubuc, Alan Marshall, Michael Grayer et al., Radical Statistics Population Studies Group
This paper examines the arguments of the Optimum Population Trust for global sustainability that put the primary emphasis on policies that (a) directly reduce fertility and (b) discourage, or even prohibit, migration from poor to rich countries. These policies are based on the carrying capacity model of environmental sustainability. This model, while superficially appealing, is largely a red herring in debates about the interactions between sustainability, climate change and human populations. We find
- that many of the proposed policies carry with them the implicit assumption that each person's carbon emissions are equal, and as such erroneously focus their policy on socio-economic groups that don't contribute highly to carbon emissions.
- that a link between an individual country's human population size and environmental degradation is not evident and cannot be reduced to the simple ecological concept of carrying capacity.
- that some of the policies proposed would have negligible effect on the world's population size.
We present evidence [e.g. The Royal Commission on Environmental Protection (2011); The Food Ethics Council (2008); and Agrimonde (2010)] that technological advances and behavioural change in both the developed and less developed world have much greater potential to generate sustainable development. We call on sustainability advocates to consider the evidence carefully before committing to these policies of population management and limits on international migration. However well intentioned, pursuit of these policies may have undesirable effects of: (a) diverting resources from more effective policies and (b) encouraging racism and conflict.
Email: admin@radstats.org.uk