A new report by Drs Céline Delacroix, Karen Hardee and J. Joseph Speidel has just been published, with funding from the Weeden Foundation and facilitation by Stable Planet Alliance founding member organization, Population Matters. Dr Karen Hardee is also an advisory board member of the Stable Planet Alliance.
We've reprinted the summary here - please see here to download this important full report.
Our demographic landscape has changed dramatically, as there are over three times as many persons in the world today as in 1950, 8 billion compared to 2.5 billion.
This rapid growth, although slowing and uneven in regions around the world, is expected to continue for decades to come, coinciding with the need to support improved living standards for billions of people still living in poverty. The world’s population is projected to continue growing by an additional 2.4 billion people, reaching 10.4 billion by 2086.
This growth is projected to disproportionately take place in lower income countries, and to exacerbate current challenges to sustainable development, including in relation to universal access to healthcare and education, and vulnerability to climate change.
Humanity’s demands on Nature now exceed what Earth is able to provide on a sustainable basis, endangering the wellbeing and quality of life of current and future generations, and harming the most vulnerable disproportionately.
This report documents that with increasing per capita consumption and still growing population numbers, human demands are depleting the natural resources essential to support human life, and driving climate change. While acknowledging the urgent need to address consumption patterns, this report describes the potential of fully voluntary family planning programs to enhance reproductive rights and health, reduce unintended pregnancies, slow population growth, and safeguard the environment.
This needed response to the challenge of reversing environmental degradation and supporting improved living standards for billions of people currently living in poverty is hampered both by opposition and by inadequate priority and resources afforded to family planning and reproductive health programs.