Curbing population explosion should be top of COP26 agenda
AFTER all the hype, the historic Climate Change summit is finally underway in Glasgow. One of the biggest conferences ever held in Britain, it has been invested with a huge significance.
Boris Johnson describes it as “a moment of truth” which could decide “the future of civilisation”. The Prince of Wales, an eco campaigner long before the green cause was popular, tells international leaders that they have “an overwhelming responsibility to generations as yet unborn”.
Millions of people will be hoping that the rhetoric is matched by a meaningful deal to tackle the crisis. Recent opinion polls show that, by a large majority, the British public regards the protection of the environment as the most pressing issue of our times. Having built up expectations, politicians cannot just mouth platitudes over the next fortnight.
Yet the alarmism should not be overdone. It suits the vanity of global rulers to talk in apocalyptic language because then they can pose as the saviours of the planet.
But elsewhere, beyond this political agenda, there are some real causes for optimism about the achievement of a more sustainable earth, particularly through dramatic advances in green technology.
MORE offensive than the overblown doomsday language is the hypocrisy of the global elite, so many of whom never practise what they preach.
It is sickening to be given lectures on the need to reduce our carbon footprints by plutocrats who treat private jets as taxis. The G20 summit in Rome at the weekend, the precursor to Glasgow, provided a perfect example of those grotesque double standards, as President Joe Biden arrived in an 85-strong motorcade which had been flown in from the US.
Apart from the hypocrisy, there is also the potential futility. That has been the outcome of so many of the previous conferences, where treaties have turned out to be irrelevant as global warming worsens.
For all the Prime Minister’s ebullient dynamism, there is a danger of an anti-climax in Glasgow, especially given that the leaders of Russia and China, two of the world’s biggest polluters, are not attending.
But there is one absence that is even more glaring than those of Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. It is that there will be no explicit focus on perhaps the biggest cause of environmental degradation, the world’s rising population.
There are currently 7.9 billion people on Earth, a total expected to rise by at least one billion every 12 years. It is a level of growth whose insatiable demands not only put an intolerable strain on our natural resources, but also fuels the ruination of eco-systems, from rivers to rain forests.
It is estimated, for example, that 80 per cent of extinction threats are due to ever more industrialized agriculture. The renowned conservationist Jane Goodall says population growth “underlies just about every single one of the problems we’ve inflicted on the planet”.
In Britain we can see all too clearly the environmental impact from rising numbers. In 1950, our population was 50 million. Today, thanks to mass immigration and an accelerating birth rate, it stands at 68 million and will pass the 70 million mark before the end of the decade.
The result is congested roads, lethal pollution, sprawling housing, loss of wildlife, and a creaking infrastructure that even allows raw sewage to be dumped in our coastal waters.
The decision to avoid this
question at Cop 26 is the equivalent of holding a conference on obesity without mentioning calorie intake or lack of exercise.
What makes the omission all the stranger is that Sir David Attenborough, the globally revered naturalist whose very name is synonymous with environmental concern, is a passionate advocate of action to limit population growth.
HE SAID recently: “There are three times as many people on Earth as when I first started making TV programmes.” Among the steps that can be taken are better access to birth control, improved education, more empowerment of women and greater prosperity.
Some argue that population growth is an irrelevance because environmental problems are caused by overconsumption, especially in the affluent West. But such a claim is illogical, since the expansion of humanity pushes up consumption throughout the world, feeding conflict, famine, poverty, and global migration.
Overpopulation is an engine of social injustice and ecodestruction. It should be at the heart of COP26 proceedings.
‘The expansion of humanity feeds conflict, famine and migration’