COP26-Overpopulation
The ‘global overpopulation problem’
For western urbanites accustomed to large crowds, it’s very easy to believe there are too many people being born in the world, and that this must be the reason for climate change, hunger and world poverty.
What are the figures for population increase?
According to the UN World Population Prospects 2019 report, the population is certainly increasing overall, and will be around 9.7bn by 2050.
The biggest growth rate is confined to 9 countries, mainly poor and under-developed ones in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
‘However, growth in these countries comes against the backdrop of a slowing global fertility rate. In 1990, the average number of births per woman was 3.2. By 2019 this had fallen to 2.5 births per woman and, by 2050, this is projected to decline further to 2.2 births: a fertility level of 2.1 births per woman is necessary to avoid national population decline over the long run (in the absence of immigration). [Our emphasis]
In other words, any country with an average rate of births per woman of 2 or below, has a declining population.
That’s most western and advanced capitalist countries then.
Why does the fertility rate decline? Because where women have control of their own fertility, ie. access to birth control, they tend to have fewer children.
In countries with high degrees of poverty and poor education, and often where patriarchal religious systems hold sway, women have no power over their own fertility, so populations tend to increase.
A post-capitalist system of common ownership would abolish the social problems that lead to population growth.
How do we know this?
Because capitalism is already doing it for rich countries.
‘Since 2010, 27 countries or areas have seen a drop of at least one per cent, because of persistently low fertility rates. Between now and 2050, that is expected to expand to 55 countries which will see a population decrease of one per cent or more, and almost half of these will experience a drop of at least 10 per cent.’
In fact the population decline in Europe is so serious that a 2004 UN report said that by 2300,
‘half the countries of Europe would lose 95 per cent or more of their population, and such countries as the Russian Federation and Italy would have only 1 per cent of their population left.’
By 2300 then, on current trends, the French, German, Italians and British will virtually cease to exist.
This is why many European countries have been doing their best to encourage immigration, despite nationalistic and racist objections, because soon there won’t be enough people of working age to do the essential work of keeping society going.
What about food and world hunger?
There is a global hunger problem but it’s not because of lack of food.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organization says ‘there is more than enough food produced today to feed every last one of us.’
‘The world already produces more than 1 ½ times enough food to feed everyone on the planet. That’s enough to feed 10 billion people. Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth.’ Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director of Food First.
It’s not so much the number of people, it’s the footprint they make
Naturally the number of people is a factor, but environmental impact is a bigger one. Those countries with the biggest population growth are often those with the smallest footprint.
By itself, this chart is misleading. Does it mean that every American citizen consumes 5 Earths’ worth of resources? No it doesn’t. This chart averages out consumption over the whole population, masking the fact that consumption is heavily stratified within societies, with most of the consumption confined to the top few percent of wealth owners.
“A 2015 study from Thomas Piketty’s research group in Paris revealed that inequalities within countries have risen to account for half of the global distribution of greenhouse gas emissions, and several other studies confirm this.
Researchers at Oxfam have been studying this issue for some years, and their most recent report concluded that the wealthiest ten percent of the global population are responsible for 49 percent of individual emissions. The richest one percent emits 175 times more carbon per person on average than the poorest ten percent. Another pair of independent research groups have released periodic Carbon Majors Reports and interactive graphics profiling around a hundred global companies that are specifically responsible for almost two-thirds of all greenhouse gases since the mid-19thcentury, including just fifty companies – both private and state-owned ones – that are responsible for half of all today’s industrial emissions (See climateaccountability.org). So while the world’s most vulnerable peoples are disproportionately impacted by droughts, floods, violent storms and rising sea levels, the responsibility falls squarely upon the world’s wealthiest.”
Brian Tokar, lecturer in Environmental Studies at Vermont University and author of six books on environmental issues. See source here.
Representing global warming as your personal responsibility is how wealth owners try to shift the blame away from themselves, and in so doing frame the debate in terms favourable to them.