Population growth negates efforts to halt greenhouse harm

Canberra Times
Wednesday 15/4/2009 Page: 17

Greenhouse gas emissions, peak oil, urban traffic congestion, air and water pollution, loss of soils and destruction of biodiversity are driven by three factors: population, consumption per person and technological impact. A doubling of any one of these factors doubles the environmental impact. To address each requires separate government policies, so it snakes sense to consider each separately.

The environment movement has strongly promoted improved technology (eg, by backing renewable energy and green buildings) and a minor part of the movement has begun to push for reduced consumption per person and to question the existing economic system in general. But, with a few exceptions, the movement has been very weak on addressing Australia's population, which has one of the highest rates of growth in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is because many have adopted a wide range of irrational myths and obfuscations that inhibit open discussion of this issue. For example: Australia is a large country and so could absorb 100 million people.

• The economy benefits from population growth. (Actually, it's only a narrow group of vested interests that benefits.) Australia's birth-rate is less than its death-rate.
• Immigration keeps the population young.
• An additional Australian has the same environmental impact as an additional person in China.
• Therefore Australia's population growth is irrelevant and we should focus on limiting world population growth.
• The only way to stop Australia's population growth is to interfere with human rights.
• We cannot stop growth in immigration without cutting refugee intake and, even if we could, reducing immigration is racist and would destroy our multicultural Australia.

These myths have almost succeeded in making population issue taboo among the community. Yet they are all easily demonstrated to be false. For instance, Australia has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialised world. Every additional Australian has a greater impact than an additional person in almost any other country. Stabilising Australia's population should be an essential component of greenhouse policy.

If Australia persists with its very high rate of population growth, as recommended by the Garnaut Review of Climate Change, then why can't China, India and Brazil? Most of the other myths about population are busted in an excellent new book by Mark O'Connor and William J. Lines, Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population (Envirobook, 2008).

Many Australians are now aware that the failure of the Howard and Rudd governments to implement strong policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions is due to a large degree to the political power of the greenhouse "mafia", the vested interests from the coal, oil, aluminium, steel, cement, motor vehicle, forestry and agricultural industries that are the biggest greenhouse gas emitters.

Yet most people are unaware that many of the population myths originate from vested interests in rapid population growth. These population boosters include the property and housing industry; industries seeking cheap labour for low-skilled and dangerous jobs; businesses generally seeking a large pool of labour so that wages and other working conditions can be diminished; the Roman Catholic Church; and governments seeking revenue from wealthy immigrants.

One of the peak groups of population boosters is the Australian Population Institute. It has a naive that could be confused with the Australian Population Association, the demographers' professional association, and the motto "populate and prosper". It sets out a large array of population fallacies as if they were fact.

On the other side, raising awkward questions on population growth, is Sustainable Population Australia, whose members include scientists, demographers and environmentalists. One of the few leading environmentalists to speak tip about the need to limit Australia's population is Professor Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

At the recent launch of Overloading Australia, Lowe pointed out that Australia's current population growth rate places us on course for about 100 million people by the end of the century, far more than Australia could sustain. He said that, even in the short term, population growth would make nonsense of most of our attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or prevent environmental damage.

It is time to address the issue of Australia's population issue properly Australia must terminate the baby bonus; strongly support voluntary birth-control programs in Australia and overseas; and substantially reduce immigration by cutting our large business/professional component while increasing the small refugee component.

Dr Diesendorf is deputy director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at UNSW and author of Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy.