{"title":"How Can African Countries Address Climate Change Problems and Optimise Demographic Dividends for Socioeconomic Development?","authors":"S. Adedini","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906867","url":null,"abstract":"As all 54 countries in Africa strive to overcome their different socio-economic challenges, the climate crisis as well as the unsustainable population growth appear to be threatening the attainment of national and international development agenda across the continent. This paper presents the relationship between climate change and population dynamics; how Africa can address the problems of the climate crisis and rapid population growth, and create the potential to harness a demographic dividend and accelerate economic growth. Many African countries need to take necessary measures to achieve a rapid and sustained fertility transition, including providing access to quality family planning services, reducing adolescent fertility, educating female children, empowering women, reducing under-five mortality and expanding labour market opportunities. These are necessary conditions for fertility transition and reaping the benefit of a demographic dividend in Africa. As African countries take strategic steps to catalyse fertility transition and accelerate economic growth, there is a need to take urgent measures to fight the climate change crisis which appears to be eroding socio-economic gains across the continent. While Africa adds only a trifling fraction of the global greenhouse gas emissions, the continent bears a disproportionately significant portion of the detrimental impact of climate change. Without the necessary actions to stem and reverse the consequences (such as health crises, food insecurity due to the destruction of crops by severe weather, the destruction of livelihoods and increases in the numbers of internally displaced persons), climate change is likely to have significant negative effects on the achievement of the sustainable development goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063. There is a need to address the twin problems of unsustainable population growth and climate crisis in Africa.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47415519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Population and Steady-State Economy in Plato and Aristotle","authors":"T. Lianos","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906862","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906862","url":null,"abstract":"The basic ideas of the modern steady-state economy model can be found in the writings of the two major ancient Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Plato in his Laws and Aristotle in his Politics discuss the optimal relationship between population and available land that would give enough wealth to the city and allow the citizens to enjoy the best life. They discuss questions of income inequality and approaches to population control. The guiding thought in these models is what the two philosophers define as the ‘best life’.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44159151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Family Planning Progress in 113 Countries Using a New Composite Progress Index","authors":"A. Chaurasia","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906866","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyses family planning progress in 113 countries in the context of meeting the demand for family planning through a composite progress index that measures progress in three dimensions – demand for permanent methods, demand for modern spacing methods and expansion of method choice – following the progress triangle approach. This paper suggests that in more than forty per cent of countries analysed, family planning progress remains far from satisfactory in meeting the family planning demand and there is substantial inter-country variation in the progress. In some countries, progress appears to have reversed. The inter-country variation in family planning progress is primarily the result of inter-country variation in meeting the demand for permanent methods. The analysis calls for the reinvigoration of family planning efforts to meet the target set under the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and the FP2030 initiative.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45798414","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial Introduction","authors":"David Samways","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906864","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906864","url":null,"abstract":"References Alcock, I., M.P. White, T. Taylor, D.F. Coldwell, M.O. Gribble, K.L. Evans, A. Corner, S. Vardoulakis and L.E. Fleming. 2017. ‘“Green” on the ground but not in the air: Pro-environmental attitudes are related to household behaviours but not discretionary air travel’. Global Environmental Change 42: 136–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.11.005 Coole, D. 2013. ‘Too many bodies? The return and disavowal of the population question’. Environmental Politics 22 (2): 195–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2012.730268 Coole, D. 2021. ‘The toxification of population discourse. A genealogical study’. The Journal of Development Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2021.1915479 Clayton, S. 2020. ‘Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change’. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102263 Demski, C., S. Capstick, N. Pidgeon, R. Gennaro Sposato and A. Spence. 2017. ‘Experience of extreme weather affects climate change mitigation and adaptation responses’. Climatic Change 140: 149–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-016-1837-4 Ehrlich, P.R. 1968. The Population Bomb. New York: Balentine Books. Fisher, S., R. Fitzgerald and W. Poortinga. 2018. ‘Climate change. Social divisions in beliefs and behaviour’. In D. Phillips, J. Curtice, M. Phillips and J. Perry (eds), British Social Attitudes 35, pp. 146–71. London: The National Centre for Social Research. Hill, L. 2019. Aviation Index 2019 – Public attitudes towards aviation in the UK. Paris: IPSOS Mori. https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/aviation-index-2019-public-attitudes-towards-aviation-uk (accessed 27 November 2019). IPCC. 2022 Climate Change 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-3/ Kahn, M. and M. Kotchen. 2011. ‘Business cycle effects on concern about climate change: the chilling effect of recession’. Climate Change Economics 2 (3): 257–73. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010007811000292 O’Neill, D.W., A.L. Fanning, W.F. Lamb and J.K. Steinberger. 2018. ‘A good life for all within planetary boundaries’. Nature Sustainability 1: 88–95. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-018-0021-4 Simon, J.L. 1981 The Ultimate Resource. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spence, A., W. Poortinga, C. Butler and N.F. Pidgeon. 2011. ‘Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience’. Nature Climate Change. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1059 Taylor, E. 2016. ‘Concern about climate change: a paler shade of green?’ In A. Park, J. Curtice, K. Thomson, M. Phillips, E. Clery, and S. Butt (eds), British Social Attitudes: The 26th report. pp. 91–118. London: Sage. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446212073 UN. 2022. Day of 8 Billion. https://www.un.org/en/dayof8billion WWF. 2022. Living Planet Report 2022 – Building a Nature-positive Society. R.E.A. Almond, M. Grooten, D. Juffe Bignoli and T. Petersen (eds). Gland: WWF.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135205838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Overshoot","authors":"William Rees","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906865","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906865","url":null,"abstract":"The human enterprise is in overshoot; we exceed the long-term carrying capacity of Earth and are degrading the biophysical basis of our own existence. Despite decades of cumulative evidence, the world community has failed dismally in efforts to address this problem. I argue that cultural evolution and global change have outpaced bio-evolution; despite millennia of evolutionary history, the human brain and associated cognitive processes are functionally obsolete to deal with the human eco-crisis. H. sapiens tends to respond to problems in simplistic, reductionist, mechanical ways. Simplistic diagnoses lead to simplistic remedies. Politically acceptable technical ‘solutions’ to global warming assume fossil fuels are the problem, require major capital investment and are promoted on the basis of profit potential, thousands of well-paying jobs and bland assurances that climate change can readily be rectified. If successful, this would merely extend overshoot. Complexity demands a systemic approach; to address overshoot requires unprecedented international cooperation in the design of coordinated policies to ensure a socially-just economic contraction, mostly in high-income countries, and significant population reductions everywhere. The ultimate goal should be a human population in the vicinity of two billion thriving more equitably in ‘steady-state’ within the biophysical means of nature.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135205839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Overshoot","authors":"W. Rees","doi":"10.1007/springerreference_20825","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/springerreference_20825","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46899797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Obituary: Herman Edward Daly, 21 July 1938 – 28 October 2022","authors":"D. Samways","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906863","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906863","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43981160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenging Pronatalism Is Key to Advancing Reproductive Rights and a Sustainable Population","authors":"Nandita Bajaj, Kirsten Stade","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906861","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906861","url":null,"abstract":"Social and environmental justice organisations have silenced discourse on human overpopulation due to fear of any association with reproductive coercion, but in doing so they have failed to acknowledge the oppressive role of pronatalism in undermining reproductive autonomy. Pronatalism, which comprises cultural and institutional forces that compel reproduction, is far more widespread, and as damaging to individual liberties as attempts to limit reproduction. The failure to recognise the enormity of pronatalism has led to the wholesale abandonment of voluntary, rights-based efforts toward a sustainable population despite widespread scientific agreement that population growth is a major driver of multiple cascading environmental crises. We examine the full range of patriarchal, cultural, familial, religious, economic and political pronatalist pressures, and argue that the reluctance to address population as a driver of the ecological crisis serves the very pronatalist forces that undermine reproductive autonomy. We posit that addressing overpopulation, and the pronatalism that drives it, must be central to international conservation and development efforts to elevate reproductive rights while also promoting planetary health.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43764190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Population dynamics, urbanisation and climate change in Africa’s intermediate cities: what can family planning contribute?","authors":"S. Adedini","doi":"10.3197/jps.63799953906860","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63799953906860","url":null,"abstract":"Africa’s large cities are rapidly urbanising and are becoming expensive, regressive and unhealthy; hence, secondary or intermediate cities have become the continent’s backbone for absorbing most of the urban population growth. Africa’s intermediate cities will be home to more than half its urban population by 2030. However, these cities have considerable investment gaps in critical infrastructure: consequently, they are less resilient and face disproportionate disasters and risks of climate stressors and other environmental challenges. The vulnerabilities of Africa’s intermediate cities are exacerbated by rapid urbanisation and inappropriate planning. As Africa’s intermediate cities continue to experience population growth and rapid urbanisation occasioned by a youthful population, high fertility and excess of births over deaths, family planning is one of the most critical investments that city leaders and officials can make to ensure a slow urban population growth and thus buy sufficient time for governments to put critical hard infrastructure and appropriate planning in place to support healthy living. Increased investment in family planning will contribute to prosperous and resilient intermediate cities in Africa.","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48998763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Johan Rockström and Owen Gaffney, Breaking Boundaries: The Science Behind our Planet","authors":"Pernilla Hansson","doi":"10.3197/jps.63788304908976","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.63788304908976","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":52907,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Population and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43358384","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}