GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

GY431 Assessed Essay Candidate Number: 39268

Few panaceas generate as much popular backing as the notion that a reduction in population size and growth would go a long way to solve the worlds major problems (G. Martine, 2009). Discuss with particular reference to urban population increase in the Global South.

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

It is undisputable that the world currently faces a number of global challenges of great proportion. What is disputed, however, are which of these challenges are of most pressing concern, and what actions would be most effective in ameliorating them. In the vast body of literature on this broad multi-disciplinary subject, many scholars have posited various ideas as to how to solve the worlds major problems, yet one of the most influential ideas put forth is that the curtailment of population growth would be most effective in solving the worlds major challenges. To critically evaluate this argument, this paper will first outline the worlds major problems, reasoned here to be climate change, poverty, and global security, will second highlight the current uneven nature of population growth, and lastly will determine if reducing current population trends would help mitigate each of these aforementioned global challenges. The paper finds that, population growth in cities in the Global South are causal factors in both problems.

Before we begin to outline the worlds major problems and evaluate the extent to which population is casually related to them, it is useful to first contextualise argument that a reduction in population size and growth would go a long way to solve the worlds major problems (G. Martine, 2009). It has been oft repeated that, for the first time in history, human beings simultaneously possess both the capacity to destroy the planet and the tools to implement global solutions to ward against this potential destruction. Though the world has faced monumental challenges in decades and centuries past, few commentators dispute the assertion that the current set of challenges facing the global community proves particularly perilous. Hence, the gravity of the claim at hand should not be understatedin deed, solutions to the worlds major problems are greatly needed to protect against potential disasters. In

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

short, the stakes are higher than ever. Nonetheless, it should also be recognised that this is not the first time that a reduction in population has been claimed to be a solution to the worlds problems, first influentially argued by Thomas Malthus in his An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798-1826). Therefore, what we see in this debate is actually a refashioning of old debates between those that believe overpopulation indeed lies at the heart of the worlds major problems (neoMalthusians), and those that reject this claim.

Before we can begin to judge the statement that a reduction in population size and growth would go a long way to solve the worlds major problems, it is first necessary to outline what, for our purposes, classify as the worlds major problems, as which problems are deemed to be the most serious will have a significant impact on the validity of the statement in question. There is no overriding consensus of what constitutes the worlds major problems, as the phrase is somewhat subjective, being conditional on the perspective, geographic location and socio-economic position. Albeit, though one may strive to obtain a neutral stance by taking a global perspective, the list or global problems which may classify as major is potentially endless. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this paper, instead of considering each proposed major world problem, a balance needs to be sought between breadth and depth, based on factors such as extent of global scope, urgency of action, and longterm consequences.

With this framework, the following three challenges have been deemed to be of most grave concern; 1) global climate change and energy, and 2) global food production and poverty. The first has been selected due to the threat that global climate change

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

poses to all human societies. In this regard, the UNFPA argues that actions now to
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the future will help humanity avert disaster in the long run. There is no time for delay; we are already at the precipice (UNFPA 2009, p. 19). The second has been selected due to the degree to which it affects individuals living in poverty, as well as the scope of the issue. According to recent research by the World Bank, 1.4 billion people, or 1/5th of the global population, currently live in poverty (World Bank 2010).

Now that weve outlined what, for our purposes, should be considered the worlds major problems, it is now necessary to profile the current state of population size and growth, paying particular attention to variances at the global level as well as in the context of urban population increase in the Global South. The first trend to notice about global population growth is that the worlds population, while growing quickly, is actually in a period of deceleration. According to the United Nations average annual
population growth rate over this half-century [2000-2050] will be 0.77 per cent, substantially lower than the 1.76 per cent average growth rate from 1950 to 2000 (UN Economics and Social Affairs 2004, p. 4). The second trend to notice is the uneven nature of this growththe overwhelming majority of population increase is predicted to take place in the Global South, with many countries in the Global North expected to experience population decrease (UN Economics and Social Affairs 2004).

Moreover, considering the role of cities in the Global South, it is important to note that a large amount of the worlds population growth, and particularly that in the developing world (which accounts for most of this worlds population growth, as outlined above), is occurring in urban areas. According to UNHABITAT, in 2008,

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

for the first time in history, over half of the worlds population lived in urban areas, and by 2050 this will have risen to 70 per cent (2009, p. 8). Moreover, this rapid population growth is not projected to take place in all urban areas, but rather, the bulk of this growth will be taking place in developing regions (UNHABITAT 2009, p. 8). Martine quantifies this assessment, stating that the worlds urban population will show an increase of over 2.9 billion people between now and 2050, most of this in Asia and Africa (Martine 2009, p. 16), thus accounting for the vast majority of the population growth projected by the UN to occur before 2050. It should also be noted that this trend of population growth within urban areas is not new; UNHABITAT recently declared that the global urban transition witnessed over the last three or so decades has been phenomenal (2009, p. 8).

Having now defined what should be considered as the worlds major problems, and outlined the uneven trends in population growth, we can turn our attention to the claim that a reduction in population growth and size would go a long way to solve the worlds major problems by considering if population size and growth are causally related to the challenges in question. What lies at the heart of this issue, then, is to what extent population growth in cities in the Global South can be considered to be sustainable.

The first major global challenge to evaluate is global climate change. In outlining the major causes of climate change, Martine claims that most attention is focused on population growth, widely portrayed as a major offender that could easily be fixed (Martine 2009, p. 1). This has led to a push within intergovernmental agencies dealing with climate change to consider policies that might dull population growth in their bid

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

to curb global emissions. However, the extent to which population growth is the chief cause of global climate change remains debatable.

Many detractors of the view curbing population growth will not heavily mitigate the global climate crisis claim that it is consumption growth in the Global North, not population growth in the Global South, which is primarily responsible for greenhouse gas emissions causing global climate change. Martine argues that the groups experiencing the fastest demographic growth are making the least environmental impact right now, while the slowest growing have already brought humankind to the brink of disaster (Martine 2009, p. 2). Rosling has passionately made the argument that most of the worlds emissions continues to be caused by the Global North, while Pearce has also brought this disparity to the fore by stating that the worlds richest half-billion peoplethats about 7 per cent of the global populationare responsible for 50 per cent of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions (Pearce 2009).

Some UN agencies seem to agree with this assessment. According to the UNFPA, rising per capita incomes have been and will be responsible for the largest share of emissions. Improvements in energy intensitythe amount of energy needed to generate a given amount of economic productis accounting for a larger reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions over time. Meanwhile, population growth has been a smaller but consistent contributor to growth in energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions (UNFPA 2009, p. 20). However, though it can be shown that consumption growth in the Global North is perhaps the chief cause of global climate change at present, increasing population growth in the cities in the Global South are projected to

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

play an increasingly strong causal role in greenhouse gas emissions in the future.

The contribution of population growth, though it has been negligible in the Global South, should not be understated. The UNFPA states that calculations of the
contribution of population growth to emissions growth globally produce a consistent finding that most of past population growth has been responsible for between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of emissions growth (UNFPA 2009, p. 21). According to Rosling, by 2050 global emissions by the worlds

poorest is set to double (Rosling 2010), and this trend will likely continue in further decades. Therefore, though not necessarily playing a major role in causing global climate change at present, the contribution of demographic growth to the aggravation of climate change threats is irrefutable (Martine 2009, p. 2), and this contribution is projected to increase over time. However, Martine goes on to demonstrate ways in which increasing population growth in cities in the Global South may not lead to the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions per capita in proportion to the Global North. Being the primary front of environmentally-favourable technological innovations, Martine argues that cities could actually play a key role in both mitigation and adaptation efforts (Martine 2009, p. 21). Despite this, however, it seems likely that population growth in the Global South will still contribute, though perhaps in a depreciating way, to global climate change.

The second major global challenge to consider is poverty and global food production Related to the above discussion on global climate change, here again we see a disagreement between those that believe unchecked urban population growth in the Global South will outstrip resources (the neo-Malthusian approach), and those that believe that population growth can be sustainable, put forward by the self-labelled
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GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

revisionists (Martine 2009, p. 3). World food production and demand typically responds to a variety of pressures, including population, fluctuating food prices, and environmental factors. For this reason, the world food problem has been labelled by demographer Tim Dyson as large and complex, and justifiably so. As a result, a lot of disagreement over the viability of global food production to continue to meet global food demand has emerged, with some arguing that global food production will fall behind demand, while others argue that global food will continue to meet demand.

In any respect, a number of studies have shown that rising global demand for food is mainly due to population growth, and furthermore, that rapid population growth is certainly an important factor behind the contemporary problem of human hunger (Dyson 1994, p. 408). This has led of a number of scholars of neo-Malthusian persuasion, citing a purported decline in world food production over recent decades, to argue that global food production will not be able to keep up with global demand, thus exacerbating current levels of hunger and poverty. However, despite these claims, the World Bank has reported that global poverty levels are actually decreasing in most regions in the world (World Bank 2010). Dyson has argued that global food production, at least at present, has in fact not been declining relative to world population growth. Yet, this does not mean that the outlook for current decades remains hopeful.

Dyson continues by conceding that slower population growth would probably eventually result in higher per capita food supplies, hence, despite the fact that levels of global poverty are currently falling, these gains have largely been achieved in spite of population growth, rather than because of it. Moreover, Dyson claims that the

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

world's most poorly nourished populations are generally growing the fastest, and in many locationsnot just in Africademographic pressures are damaging the resource base upon which people's livelihoods depend (Dyson 1994, p. 407). Therefore, there is a real threat that continued population growth, particularly in cities in the Global South, will begin to erode recent gains in poverty reduction, not only by potentially increasing global food demand quicker than global food production, but also by undermining food production capacity through the damaging environmental processes entailed in the rapid under-planned urbanisation taking place in the Global South. Moreover, Dyson argues that over the longer term, there is considerable uncertainty about global environmental change and its effects on the food economy (Dyson 1994, p. 408), thus climate change may also contribute to declining food production capacity, hence reinforcing the negative effects of urban population growth in the Global South on global food production.

In conclusion, the extent to which a reduction in population size and growth would solve the worlds major problems remains both contentious and highly dependent upon which current global challenges are selected as the worlds major problems. However, with respect to both global climate change and global food production, population growth, particularly in cities in the Global South, are, despite some minor caveats, causal factors.

GY431 Assessed Essay

Candidate Number: 39268

Bibliography Martine, George (2009) Population Dynamics and Policies in the Context of Global Climate Change, Paper prepared for Expert Group Meeting on Population Dynamics and Climate Change UNFPA and IIED. Rosling, Hans (2010), Hans Rosling and the Magic Washing Machine, Public Lecture at TEDWomen, Dec 2010, Washington DC. Dyson, Tim (1994), Population Growth and Food Production: Recent Global and Regional Trends in Population and Development Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 397411. Dyson, Tim (2001) World Food Trends: A Neo-Malthusian Prospect?, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 145, No. 4, pp. 438-455. UNFPA (2009), State of World Population 2009, United Nations, New York. UN-Habitat (2009) Planning Sustainable Cities: Global Report on Human Settlements 2009, Earthscan. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2004), World Population to 2300, United Nations, New York. World Bank (2010), World Bank Updates Poverty Estimates for the Developing World available online at <http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/ 0,,contentMDK:21882162~pagePK:64165401~piPK:64165026~theSitePK:4693 82,00.html>, accessed on May 03, 2011. Pearce, Fred (2009), Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat, Yale Environment 360/Guardian Environmental Network, available online at <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/15/consumption-versuspopulationenvironmental-impact>, accessed May 03, 2011.

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