The run up to Copenhagen has begun and by all accounts it was a little more fiery than expected. I’m not referring to the Climate Camp in London, whose location was kept so secret, nor am I referring to Sen. Chuck Grassley’s remarkable comments that there are an increasing number of scientists who have doubts about Climate Change…really? This sounds a little like Sen Inhofe’s infamous list, many of whom were horrified to learn they were including on his list ( yes, he basically made it up). All of these are mere broadsides in the contemporary Climate Change debate. The fire in this debate, which we’ve only seen glimmers on touches on the elephant in the room for environmentalists and even governments, Population control. India’s Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh issued a response to efforts by the US to bring India’s population into the debate:
Speaking at a conference in the Indian capital, organised by Delhi’s Centre for Science and Environment, Jairam Ramesh said there was a “move in western countries to bring population into climate change [negotiations]. Influential American think-tanks are asking why should we reward profligate reproductive behaviour? Why should we reward India which is adding 14 million people every year?”
For many environmentalists, population control is the issue not spoken of. Many are reluctant enough to talk about curbing our “excessive lifestyles”, reducing the number of cars, the size of our homes, waste and all the rest of it makes Environmentalists seem draconian enough and a ideology of gloom without adding the terrifying illiberal issue of population control to the mix. Yet for many, it remains the elephant in the room. Recently some scientists in environmental corners have whispered it out, what is the best thing I can do to to go green? hybrid car? recycling? Errr no, don’t procreate so much.
The maths is quite simple, if you stopped flying and etc etc you could probably reduce your average footprint from say a ball park of 25 down to 15, a big reduction to be sure but over your lifetime that would ( very simplistically) only take 800 tons difference. Here is what a child adds on average:
Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
But population control goes beyond Climate Change, in fact to some extent it dwarfs Climate Change as a problem. The world’s population is estimated to peak around 2050, with at over 9 billion people. Over that period standards of living will rise for hundreds of millions of people which, without huge breakthroughs in food production and resource recycling will result in incredible strain on a planet already unable to sustain the current population. The new people rightly will expect higher standards of living than their forebears and governments will face acute problems as rising demands meets dwindling supply. Climate Change compounds the issue, reducing the earth;s resource capacity most critically in areas of food production and more gravely reducing it in the regions of the world with the fastest growing populations.
Africa and the Middle East, have among the fastest growing population and are also among the most water-poor areas in the world, with the former in historically dire straits its problems will almost certainly be gravely compounded lacking even the basic means agricultural production.
The issue, is a uniquely human one, all other animal species grow to the extent their environment can sustain them, reaching a natural equilibrium of sorts. Humans, differ and have expanded exponentially over their history. This century may prove more testing than others with Climate Change and economic growth heading towards a degree of inevitable conflict. You’ve already seen this problem, water resources in Sudan, oil wars in the Middle East, these problems aren’t solely due to population but population can create almost insurmountable structural pressure on politics to match demand.
But unlike other Climate Change problems which are about financing , economic growth, technology transfer and trade terms, population control hits home directly. How many children will you or someone else be allowed? It’s a distinctly moral question, the biological essence of humanity is put into question and one of surely our most basic rights could be called into question. Deeper than that is that, it has more underlying undertones of power politics. Wealthy and ageing western populations trying to curb the fertility of China, India, Africa and the Middle East, touches on raw nerves of the balance of global power.
This isn’t the first time the issue has been raised. China, the only country to have enacted an all-encompassing population policy in its infamous “one child policy” has in the past noted that it has done more than many countries in the effort to control Climate Change through its one child policy, which it estimates have kept several hundred million from existence and thus relieved enormous future amounts of strain from the world.
Going into Copenhagen population control is highly unlikely to feature, however its emergence into International dialogue has begun already and soon this taboo subject may well become centre stage, although I suspect a third-rail at first.
