Elephant in the greenhouse part I

Negotiations tended to make aspects of population policies weaker and aspects of social and economic development stronger. The Conference became polarized between the 'incrementalist' position of a group of Western States (including US, UK, Germany) that believed that rapid population growth was a serious impediment to development, and the 'redistribution' position, followed by a group of developing countries led by Argentina and Algeria that believed that the population problem was a consequence and not a cause of underdevelopment and that it could be solved by a new international economic order focusing on the redistribution of resources.

The significance of Bucharest, according to observers Jason Finkle and Barbara Crane, was in “a new politicization of population – not within terms of the classic debate between Marx and Malthus, but in the context of the contemporary struggle over distribution of resources and power between the industrial nations and the developing nations of the Third World.”

Why the unexpected LDC militancy? Lack of substantial international aid during the previous decade, combined with stagnant economic growth, had created a mood of increasing despondency. Many countries felt their predicament was not due to population growth, but something more sinister –western exploitation. Like those seeking ‘climate justice’ today, they sought greater global economic ‘equality’.

Whether population growth is a consequence or cause of underdevelopment – and a phenomenon that could be slowed only by a new ‘redistributive’ economic order – is a debate that persists today. But it has been recast – some might say airbrushed away – in the sustainable development framework of Agenda 21 and by growing demands for ‘climate reparations’ since the 1992 Earth Summit.

So a key aspect of the controversy four decades ago was disagreement over the causes of demographic transition – the historical shift of birth and death rates from high to low levels, with declines in mortality usually preceding fertility declines.

Was Europe’s experience during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries inevitable in all countries? Was demographic transition a law of Nature? For the dramatic LDC mortality declines since 1950 had not been accompanied by gradual economic development as it had been in Europe. When it occurred fertility had remained high due to other factors - access to improved health care, modern vaccines, medical technology and so on.

Despite such unresolved issues, several key UN member states changed their positions during the next decade. The US now considered population a ‘neutral phenomenon for development’. While many LDCs - - including Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan - expressed firm support for family planning and population programmes.

In a television debate during President Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign he described the so-called population explosion as ‘vastly exaggerated – over-exaggerated ‘. A growing number of influential commentators shared his perspective, including Julian Simon and futurist Herman Kahn.

Demographer Paul Demeny reflected on the new mood in his 1986 presidential address to the Population of Association of America. Since the early 1980s, he said, ‘a substantial shift had occurred in the balance of views by knowledgeable observers’ on global population growth and policy responses. Not only were current perspectives significantly different from the ‘earlier dominant orthodoxy’, but they also converged into a ‘newly optimistic assessment of the population problem….In extreme formulations, the problem is disposed of entirely.’  It was a change that he personally found ‘wanting’.

Another turning point in the demographic drama came two decades later at the Cairo Conference. Clause 1.3 of the Preamble acknowledged the world population was currently about 5.6 billion. While the rate of growth was declining, absolute increments exceeded 86 million new persons a year and were expected to remain near this level until 2015.

It was at Cairo that steps were taken to try and hasten LDC demographic transition:

Objective 6.3: Recognizing that the ultimate goal is the improvement of the quality of life of present and future generations, the objective is to facilitate the demographic transition as soon as possible in countries where there is an imbalance between demographic rates and social, economic and environmental goals, while fully respecting human rights. This process will contribute to the stabilization of the world population, and, together with changes in unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, to sustainable development and economic growth.

Empowerment of women was adopted as critical factor in stabilising the global population. But could it be achieved sufficiently quickly in different cultures to deliver the desired fertility reductions, assuming women wanted less children?

And how would ‘sustainable development’ – “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” – the other much-promoted ‘solution’ to the population problem - be effective given prevailing high growth rates, and without specifying a global optimum population and levels of per capita consumption?

Despite the optimistic mood, concern remained that some LDCs might be caught in a demographic trap - where birth rates remain high as infant mortality declines - with population growth so rapid that development could not keep pace and slow it. In such a scenario there would be failed states, intensifying environmental damage, famine, forced migration - and ultimately higher mortality.