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The Issue
However, the possibility for a sustainable future still exists if we act NOW to ensure that people can improve their lives today and work towards a sustainable future tomorrow. Population Facts World population stands at approximately 6 billion - and growing. More than 81 million people are added to the planet each year - the equivalent of adding another population the size of Los Angeles monthly. More than 1 billion people are added to the world every decade. The world's population has grown because of a combination of positive changes such as improved sanitation, nutrition and health care which enable people to live longer, more productive lives. Population momentum also contributes to population growth. Population momentum means that as more people are born in the world, there is a larger pool of people entering their child-bearing years at the same time, which creates a "population bulge."
Of total population growth, nearly 98 percent occurred in low-income countries, where poverty has already impeded the ability of many families to meet their basic needs. Consumption Population pressures alone are not responsible for environmental deterioration. Overconsumption of our natural resource base is jeopardizing ecosystems throughout the world. Wealthy nations like the US constitute 20 percent of the world's population, yet they use more than 70 percent of its resources. Many of these resources are extracted from low-income countries with little benefit to them, further accelerating environmental degradation in these countries, and often destroying the very resources (tress, land, etc.) that low income people depend upon to meet their basic needs. Overconsumption by the wealthy in both industrialized and low-income nations, and to a lesser extent, pollution produced by the poor as a result of impoverished living conditions have a profound environmental impact. Environment Population growth interacts with consumption patterns to intensify environmental problems and compound human suffering in many regions of the world.
The Answer
There, delegates concurred that the best way to curb global population growth is through a multi-faceted approach that improves the quality of life for millions of people throughout the world. Equity for women and greater economic equity between overconsumers and the world's poorest citizens is the key to slowing global population growth and ensuring sustainable development. This approach includes providing universal access to a wide range of affordable family planning and reproductive health care services by the year 2015, developing projects for women that make them full participants in the educational, social, political, and economic aspects of their societies, and working to ensure sustainable development throughout the world. The Cairo Programme of Action affirms individuals rights to plan their families and improve their lives. Rather than diluting population stabilization efforts, the Cairo approach to population and development strengthens our efforts because it addresses many of the social, economic, and political factors that influence family size, as well as ensuring access to family planning and reproductive health care. Women who receive some secondary schooling, as well as women who can earn an income, tend to marry later and have fewer children. In Asia, Latin America, and Africa girls who obtain a secondary education will plan to have one or two fewer children than girls with less education. Education and economic opportunities for women are beneficial in their own right and also help to slow population growth. Photo (top) courtesy www.freeimages.co.uk, (middle) courtesy www.imagesoftheworld.org, (bottom) Marilyn Pfaltz Up to Top |
Thirty years ago, many people imagined that life would be idyllic in the 21st century. Technology would have remedied most human foibles, and there would be plenty of resources available for all. But as we near the millennium, we are nowhere near those utopian ideals. Today, many of the environmental and social problems that have plagued humanity for years continue to do so, and in many cases these problems have worsened. Population growth and over consumption underlie many of the pervasive environmental and social concerns that humans face today.
This is what is happening today. Nearly three billion young people (equal to the whole population of the world in 1960) will enter their child-bearing years in the next generation and even if each couple chose to have only one child, the sheer number of people bearing children in the same time period will put enormous strain on the Earth's resources.
While the problems may seem insurmountable: they aren't. Population growth is already slowing as women throughout the world choose to have smaller families. In 1960, women around the world gave birth to more than five children on average. Today, women give birth to an average of three children. However, in order to create a sustainable future, population growth must slow to the level where births equal deaths (zero population growth). To achieve a sustainable population level, we need to work to accelerate this global trend towards smaller families. The consensus reached at the 1994 U.N. International Conference on Population and development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt works to do just that.