OPTIMUM POPULATION TRUST, May 7, 2007
COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE WITH FEWER
BABIES – OPT REPORT
By Thalif Deen
A radical form of “offsetting” carbon dioxide emissions
to prevent climate change is proposed today – having fewer
children.
Each new UK citizen less means a lifetime carbon dioxide saving
of nearly 750 tonnes, a climate impact equivalent to 620 return
flights between London and New York*, the Optimum Population Trust
says in a new report.
Based on a “social cost” of carbon dioxide of $85 a
tonne**, the report estimates the climate cost of each new Briton
over their lifetime at roughly £30,000. The lifetime emission
costs of the extra 10 million people projected for the UK by 2074
would therefore be over £300 billion. ***
A 35-pence condom, which could avert that £30,000 cost
from a single use, thus represents a “spectacular” potential
return on investment – around nine million per cent.
The report adds: “The most effective personal climate change
strategy is limiting the number of children one has. The most
effective national and global climate change strategy is limiting
the size of the population.
“Population limitation should therefore be seen as the most
cost-effective carbon offsetting strategy available to individuals
and nations – a strategy that applies with even more force
to developed nations such as the UK because of their higher consumption
levels.”
A Population-Based Climate Strategy, the OPT’s latest research
briefing, is published today (Monday, May 7 2007) and available
at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.sub.briefing.climate.population.May07.pdf
It says human population growth is widely acknowledged as one
of the main causes of climate change yet politicians and environmentalists
rarely discuss it for fear of causing offence. The result is that
a “de facto taboo” exists, throughout civil society
and government.
One consequence is that “couples making decisions about
family size do so in the belief that it is a matter for them and
their personal preferences alone: the public debate and awareness
that might have encouraged them to think about the implications
of their choices for their fellow citizens, the climate and the
wider environment have been missing.”
Other points in the briefing include:
Providing low-carbon electricity for the 11 million extra UK
households forecast for 2050 would mean building seven more Sizewell
B nuclear power stations or 10-11,000 wind turbines.
Global population growth between now and 2050 is equivalent in
carbon dioxide emissions terms to the arrival on the planet of
nearly two more United States, over two Chinas, 10 Indias or 20
UKs.
Even if by 2050 the world had managed to achieve a 60 per cent
cut in its 1990 emission levels, in line with the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change’s recommendations and the UK Government’s
target, almost all of it would be cancelled out by population
growth.
It concludes: “A population-based [climate] strategy…involves
fewer of the taxes, regulations and other limits on personal freedom
and mobility now being canvassed in response to climate change…To
sum up, it would be easier, quicker, cheaper, freer and greener.”
Valerie Stevens, co-chair of the OPT, said: “We appreciate
that asking people to have fewer children is not going to make
us popular in some quarters. Equally, expressing concern about
the environmental impacts of mass migration, which currently accounts
for the bulk of population growth in the UK and will have a major
effect on Britain’s carbon emissions, is a quick route to
being labelled racist. But these are hugely important issues and
the unfortunate fact is that both politicians and the environmental
movement are in denial about them. It’s high time we started
discussing them like adults and confronting the real challenges
of climate change.”
She added: “Government fiscal measures that support child-bearing
however many children a couple has, send a signal that increasing
numbers are good for the welfare of everyone. In a world needing
to diminish its consumption of key resources, especially energy,
this is sadly no longer true.”
NOTES
*Based on 1.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per return flight (Department
for Transport).
**Stern Review, October 2006.
***Fertility levels in the UK have been below replacement level
(2.1 children per woman) for around 30 years. Inward migration
is currently the main driver of UK population growth, accounting
for over 80 per cent of projected increase to 2074. However, even
without the effects of immigration, demographic momentum –
the result of the large numbers of children produced in earlier
age bands reaching child-bearing age – would have prevented
any population decline up to the present. The total fertility
rate (TFR) peaked in 1964 at 2.95 children per woman, but this
was followed by a rapid fall in the number of births per woman
in the 1970s. In 2005 the TFR in the UK was 1.78 children; it
is expected to level off at 1.74 (Office of National Statistics).
The full briefing is available on the OPT’s website at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.sub.briefing.climate.population.May07.pdf
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Telephone 07976 370221 or see www.optimumpopulation.org
Or contact the following:
Valerie Stevens, OPT co-chair: 01509 843109 / 07711 616243
(mobile)
Prof John Guillebaud, OPT co-chair: 07779 180188 (mobile)
David Nicholson-Lord, OPT research associate: 020 8693 5789
NOTES FOR EDITORS: The OPT, a think-tank and campaign group,
was founded in 1991 by the late David Willey. Its main aims are
to promote and co-ordinate research into criteria that will allow
the sustainable or optimum population of a region to be determined.
Its patrons include Paul Ehrlich, professor of population studies,
Stanford University; Jane Goodall, founder, the Jane Goodall Institute,
UN Messenger of Peace; Susan Hampshire, actor; Aubrey Manning,
broadcaster and professor of natural history, University of Edinburgh;
Professor Norman Myers, visiting fellow, Green College, Oxford;
Sara Parkin, founder director and trustee, Forum for the Future;
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission;
Professor Chris Rapley, director, British Antarctic Survey; and
Sir Crispin Tickell, director of the Policy Foresight Programme,
James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, Oxford University.
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