Published: September 25 2009 20:44 | Last updated: September 25 2009 20:44 For too long population control has been virtually absent from international political discourse. Leaders have been reluctant to raise the issue for several reasons. One is fear of the powerful religious lobbies opposed to contraception. Another is the unfortunate legacy of some over-enthusiastic family planning campaigns in the past, such as India’s in the 1970s. But several factors are now coming together to put family planning back on the global agenda where it belongs. The most immediate is climate change. In the run-up to December’s Copenhagen conference, academics and pressure groups are pointing out that world population growth – from 2.6bn in 1950 to 6.8bn now and on to somewhere between 8bn and 10.5bn in 2050 – is making it far harder to achieve cuts in carbon emissions. Every extra individual on our planet consumes resources and adds significant carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, even if he or she lives in the poorest parts of the world where populations are growing fastest. A study at theLondon School of Economics found that spending on basic family planning was five times more cost-effective at cutting carbon dioxide emissions than conventional low-carbon technologies. Climate change may be the most topical but it is not the only environmental or resource problem exacerbated by population growth. The most serious may be the Malthusian question of how to raise food production by the required 70 per cent by 2050. Indeed it is hard to think of any aspect of life on earth that would be improved by having more people. Even in the industrialised world, where there has been concern about declining birth rates leading to an excessively elderly age profile, populations have recently begun to increase again. We cannot rely on the demographic reassurance that the global population problem will solve itself automatically as birth rates fall in step with falling mortality rates and rising living standards. Fortunately, action to slow the population growth rate does not require the type of compulsion that gave family planning a bad name in the past. It means providing contraceptives to the estimated 200m women worldwide who want but do not have access to modern birth control. Experts say this could prevent about 80m unintended pregnancies per year – and almost stop population growth. To the extent that the contraceptives are condoms, it would also reduce the spread of HIV/Aids and others sexually transmitted diseases. With the current US administration far more sympathetic to population issues than its predecessor, the prospects for a co-ordinated international drive to provide government aid for family planning are improving. The time has come not just for talk but for action. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.Malthus redux
Sunday, 27 September 2009
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