Devendra Kothari PhD
Population and Development Analyst
Forum for Population Action
“So the rich countries have a huge responsibility because
they have been emitting greenhouse gases for many years and they have no right
to deny other people's right to development. However,
the global warming is a real phenomenon but development is inevitable. The question is: how can we ensure that
the developing world continues to develop and lift people out of poverty and
reduce emissions? ”
Since the first 1992 Earth Summit at
Rio de Janeiro, the experts and policy makers have been emphasizing on curbing carbon
emissions to manage the climate change. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC - 2013)[1]
reiterates that carbon emissions have been accelerating
and that we will crash through the global CO2 safety limit by 2030. It warns
that sharp greenhouse gas emissions cuts worldwide need to begin now, with a
40% to 70% reduction by midcentury, to avert the worst effects of climate
change. It appears that the climate scientists/experts are convinced that only way to manage the
climate change is to stop/reduce the growth in greenhouse gas emissions even by
imposing some harsh measures or taxation. A leading Yale economist William Nordhaus, who argued in favor of Carbon Tax at the Copenhagen Climate Change Congress, believes
that it “would help us to stabilize the world climate system, since taxation is
a proven instrument. Taxes may be unpopular, but they work”. [2] However, that is
a crunch issue.
The
Problem:
A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon content of fuels. Carbon taxes, however, could be a regressive tax, in that they may
directly or indirectly affect low-income groups disproportionately. Here one would like to go through the observations made by Hillary
Clinton in her latest book “Hard Choices’’ (Simon &
Schuster, 2014). The cooperation of
the developing countries including China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and
South Africa, who are gaining international clout more for their expanding
economics than their military might, would be
essential for any comprehensive agreement on climate change. At the same time each
of these countries is committed to raising incomes and decreasing poverty by
increasing industrial output. For example, China has already moved hundreds of
millions of people out of poverty since Deng Xiaoping opened it to the world in
1978, but in 2009, 100 million Chinese still lived on less than a dollar per
day. That poses a stark choice: Could China afford to tackle climate change
while so many millions were still so poor? Could it follow a different
development path, relying on more efficient and renewable energy that would
still decrease poverty? China is not the only nation struggling with this
question. She notes further: “When you govern a country that has deep
inequalities and poverty, it’s understandable to believe you can’t afford to
restrain your growth just because 19th- and 20th- century
industrial powers polluted their way to prosperity. If India could improve the
lives of millions of its citizens by accelerating industrial growth, how could
it afford to choose a different path? The answers given by these countries as to whether they would be part of combating
climate change, even though they had not caused it, would determine the
success or failure of our diplomacy” (Page 495).
As everyone knows that India’s per capita emissions are far below that
of developed countries, and as such there is no legitimate basis for
international pressure being put on developing countries like India to play equal
role in managing the climate change. But
it is a stubborn fact that it would be impossible to stop the rise in global
temperature if these rapidly developing economies insisted on playing by the
old rules and pumping massive amount of carbon into the atmosphere. “Even if
the United States some how reduced our emissions all the way to zero tomorrow,
total global levels still would be nowhere near
where they need to be if China, India and other (developing countries)
failed to contain their own emissions”, noted Hillary
Clinton (Page 496). She suggests that the developed countries
especially the United States must work more on developing clean technologies
that would drive economic growth and fight poverty in the developing countries.
No doubt, technology and financial flows from the
industrialized world to emerging economies would
drive economic growth and flight poverty while also reducing emissions. But that
is not going to resolve the issue on a sustainable basis. Finding sustainable solutions has become a
matter of necessity as people and communities suffer the consequences of our
planet heating up. So it is vital to think beyond existing strategies.
And the post aims in this direction. It suggests an
alternative way to cut
in carbon intensity, especially in the developing countries including India,
which are more doable and humane.
Think
beyond Carbon emissions:
Though the IPCC-2013 report acknowledges the contribution of “human factor” to unsustainable levels of
greenhouse gas emissions, it fails to endorse policies that can contribute to
limiting such emissions by lowering population growth or fertility. Roger
Martin, chairman of the UK charity - Population Matters, rightly states that human
beings’ impact on the environment depends on two factors: the average
ecological footprint of each person, multiplied by the number of people. While
the experts and policy makers focus on how to reduce the former, scant
attention however, is being paid to the latter. There is an urgent need
to discuss the implications of the galloping world’s population
especially in the developing world and its impact in managing the climate change. A study by O’Neill and
his colleagues of energy use and demographics conclude that slowing global
population growth “could provide 16 – 29 per cent of the emissions reductions
suggested being necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change”.[3] As such, population dynamics are one of the
key factors to consider when thinking about managing the climate change.
In the past 50 years the world has experienced an
unprecedented increase in population growth. In 2010 there were around 7
billion people on earth, almost three times as many as in 1950. The next 40
years are projected to add another 2.6 billion people - 97 per cent of them in
developing countries. The share of developing world in the world population is
expected to increase from 82 percent in 2010 to 87 percent in 2050 (Table 1).
Today, the world is adding the largest numbers to its
population than in any time in history. Despite the fact that the annual
population growth rate has declined from 2.1 per cent in the late sixties to
1.2 per cent per year in 2010, world population is currently growing by about
80-85 million annually. According to the UN World Population Prospects, future
population of the world will mainly be fuelled by some large African and Asian
countries including India. "The problem”, according
to philanthropist Bill Gates, “is that the population is growing the fastest
where people are less able to deal with it. It's in the very poorest places
that you're going to have a tripling in population by 2050”. Even if most of this growth is in low consumption regions or less
developed world, all of these extra people need food, water, energy and
shelter. Together, population growth and rising consumption are likely to
increase demand for food by 70 per cent by 2050. This may be impossible to achieve,
even without the impact of climate change.
Table 1: Trends in population, 1950-2050
Year
|
World
|
Developed World
|
Developing World
|
|||
In million
|
Percent
|
In million
|
Percent
|
In million
|
Percent
|
|
1950
|
2526
|
100
|
813
|
32
|
1713
|
68
|
1970
|
3691
|
100
|
1008
|
27
|
2683
|
73
|
1990
|
5321
|
100
|
1148
|
21
|
4173
|
79
|
2010
|
6916
|
100
|
1241
|
18
|
5675
|
82
|
2030
|
4425
|
100
|
1294
|
15
|
7131
|
85
|
2050
|
9551
|
100
|
1303
|
13
|
8248
|
87
|
Source: UN Population Division.
|
||||||
Are people in poor countries against
small family norm? While world’s population continues to grow by around 85-90
million annually, more than 200 million women, mainly from the poor countries
lack access to basic contraception. Often, these women must travel far from
their communities to reach a health facility, only to return home “empty handed” due to shortages and
stock-outs as well as non availability of staff. When women seeking family
planning services are turned away, they are unable to protect themselves from
unintended/unwanted pregnancies. [4]
The number of pregnancies worldwide is estimated to
have been 209 million in 1995 and is projected to have been 208 million in
2008. Of the pregnancies that occurred in 2008, 185 million (89%) were among
women living in the developing world, and
23 million were among those in the developed world. The estimated 208 million
pregnancies in 2008 resulted in 102 million intended births, 41 million induced
abortions, 33 million unintended/unwanted births, and 31 million miscarriages. [5] It means a sizable population growth in the world especially in the developing
world is mainly fueled by unwanted fertility.
One
can argue that we should not look upon human beings as unwanted burdens. Yet, a
small planet is growing more crowded every day, and we may be reaching the
limits of a sustainable ecology. The green movement will be shadowed by two or
three billion extra people over the next forty years. If each of them pollutes
the environment on even a modest scale, disaster looms.
Nowhere
is this truer than India. India is a relatively low-carbon economy but primary
energy demand is expected to more than double by 2030. India's huge rural
population is directly dependent on climate sensitive resources — the forests,
agricultural land and grasslands — which are increasingly under threat from
that paradox: water shortage and flooding. As such, the emerging
population scenario in India is of interest to anyone interested in India’s
development, as well as concerned with the global warming. With around 1.27
billion people, India is currently the second most populous nation in the world.
The UN Population Division projects that it will surpass China as the most
populous within 10 years. India's population is
projected to peak at 1.7 billion in 2060. China at its peak in 2025 will have
1.4 billion people.
While India's population growth rate has
been declining over the years, the overall population will continue to grow as
51% of the population is in the reproductive age group (15-49). Millions more
will join this cohort each year. At
current levels, it may take several decades more to stabilize the
population. Although India has adopted several impressive goals to reduce
its population growth rates, the country has a long way to go to achieve
meaningful population controls with a growth rate of 1.6%, representing a ‘doubling time ‘of less than 44 years.
Current
population growth is mainly fuelled by unwanted fertility. More than
four in ten pregnancies are unintended/unplanned or simply unwanted by the
women who experience them and half or more of these pregnancies result in
births that spur continued population growth. Today 26.5 million babies are born each
year and out of this about 6 million births could be classified as
unwanted or unplanned. It is estimated that around 450 million people out of
1200 million in 2011 in India who were result of unwanted pregnancies and most
of them are from the lower economic strata.[6] The
consequences of unintended pregnancy are serious, slowing down the process of
socio-economic development as well as process of change, and is being reflected
in widespread hunger, poor health, poverty, unskilled labour force, unemployment, regressing
governance as well as increasing scarcity of basic resources like food, water
and space despite concerted developmental efforts since 1991.
What must
be done to reduce unwanted fertility and its consequences? Expanding access to effective modern methods of contraceptives and improving the
quality of contraceptive information and services may be the strategy that is
the most achievable in the near term, and that is most responsive to stabilize the world climate system by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It will also serve women’s long-term health needs.[7] Additionally, reducing population growth will help alleviate
poverty, which will have positive impact on efforts to manage the climate change. Thus, making quality reproductive health services
accessible to all women in need are urgent environmental, economic and health
imperatives. It
means if all women have the capacity to decide for them when to become pregnant
, survey data affirm, average global childbearing would immediately fall below
the replacement fertility value of slightly more than two children per woman.
And population would immediately move onto a path leading to a peak followed by
a gradual decline, possibly well before 2050.
As per the United Nations that the world's
population is expected to hit eight billion in the next eight to nine
years, and at the same time too many people do not have the means to control
their fertility.
As such, we must ensure that reproductive health services are better funded and
that they become available to everyone who wants them. But, access to quality reproductive health services is
often inadequate, partly because of insufficient resources. As such, the developed
world must support and fund the reproductive health services in the developing world.
In addition to
supporting reproductive health servicers, the world, especially the developed
world has to invest in clean technologies in a big way
that would drive economic growth and flight poverty while also reducing
emissions. This requires that we take climate change out
of the environment issue bracket as it affects all areas in life.
In short, I strongly agree with the naturalist Sir David Attenborough
that “Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population,
perhaps it’s time to control the population to allow the survival of
environment”.
[1] IPCC 2013. Climate Change 2013: The
Physical Science Basis. The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
[2] For
details, see link: www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/12/carbon-tax-should-replace-kyoto-protocol.
[3] O’Neill, Brian C. et al. 2010. “Global Demographic
Trends and Future Carbon Emissions”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America, October 2010. Also see O’Neill, Brian C. et al. 2012.
“Demographic
Change and Carbon Dioxide Emissions”,
The Lancet, July 2012.
The Lancet, July 2012.
[4] “Empty
Handed: Responding to the Demand for Contraceptives”, a documentary by
Population Action International, Washington DC tells the story of women’s lack of access
to reproductive health supplies in sub-Saharan Africa, and its impact on their
lives.
[5] For details see, Chapter 7 of Abortion
Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress, Guttmacher Institute.
[6] Kothari, Devendra. 2011. “Implications
of Emerging Demographic Scenario: Based on the Provisional Results of Census of
India 2011”, A Brief,
a publication of Management Institute of Population and Development – A Unit of
Parivar Seva Sanstha, New Delhi.
[7] Kothari, Devendra.
2014. “Empowering women in India: Need for a Feminist Agenda”, Journal of Health Management, 16 (2) A SAGE Publication, pp 233-43.
