NEWS RELEASE

BABY SHORTAGE “A MYTH”

The idea that the UK is suffering a shortage of babies and needs to boost its birth rate to prevent a future tax and pensions crisis is “environmental and economic lunacy”, the Optimum Population Trust said today (Monday, February 20).

A report released yesterday (Sunday, February 19) by the Institute for Public Policy Research, the leading New Labour think-tank, claimed there was a “baby gap” of 90,000 between the number of children women say they wanted and the number they had. It said Britain was at a “demographic fork in the road” and needed to increase its fertility to prevent future tax rises.

“The IPPR report says, in effect, that we need more babies to pay for our pensioners but this ignores the fact that those babies will eventually become pensioners themselves,” said David Nicholson-Lord, research associate for OPT. “When that happens, we will need – on the IPPR’s logic, at least - even more babies to support the even greater number of pensioners. Population would thus have to go on increasing ad infinitum - something the planet clearly cannot support.

“The IPPR just doesn’t seem to understand the basic notion of environmental limits. In both economic and environmental terms, what they are proposing is lunacy. Maybe their researchers should get out a bit more and look at the devastating impacts on the planet that human population growth – even without the extra numbers they want us to produce - is already causing.”

Global population is forecast to rise by 40 per cent, from 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion, over the next four decades. In the UK - where the IPPR, in common with many politicians, claims we are facing demographic “decline” - the population is projected to rise by 17 per cent, or 10.5 million, by 2074. The UK is already one of the world’s most densely populated countries, with densities twice as high as those in China. Three quarters of Britons think the country is overcrowded.

“The IPPR report takes only a few paragraphs to deal with environmental problems and reaches the stunningly complacent conclusion that ‘concerns about overall population size can be put to one side by British policymakers’,” said David Nicholson-Lord. “This not only discounts the direct effects of high population densities on quality of life and resources in the UK. It also ignores the fact that Britons are consuming around three times their share of the world’s sustainable resources – and we’d need at least two extra planets if everyone lived a British lifestyle. A surge in the number of high-consuming Britons is one of the last things the planet needs over the coming century.”

OPT is calling for an international protocol on population to implement a sustainable population policy for the Earth. A “population Kyoto” would set a framework in which the world could aim at population stabilisation and reduction targets, to be achieved through universally and freely available family planning, the encouragement of small families and balanced migration. On the basis of ecological footprinting research, it believes sustainable population targets would be 20-29 million for the UK.

Population Facts

* The UK’s population is projected to rise from over 60 million to nearly 71 million by 2074. This is equivalent to one-and-a half cities the size of London or 57 Lutons (population 184,000).

* If the current world population stopped using fossil fuels and lived a western European lifestyle based entirely on renewable energy, it would still need, in total, 2.8 Earths - nearly two more planets - to support it, according to ecological footprinting calculations. To live within the carrying capacity of one Earth, population would thus need to be reduced by a factor of 2.8. In 2001, the year on which the calculations are based, a “sustainable” world population would on this basis have been 2.2 billion – as opposed to the actual figure, 6.2 billion.

*The UK’s ”ecological deficit” – the amount by which its global ecological footprint exceeds its own biologically productive capacity - is roughly 47 million hectares. This is roughly twice its land area (24 million hectares) and nearly three times its area of biologically productive land (18 million hectares). (Living Planet Report, 2004, WWF/UNEP). In effect, we need between three and four UKs (3.6) to support its present population: most of the land used to feed and service the UK lies outside it.

* Projections commissioned by the OPT from the Government Actuary’s department based on 2003 figures suggest that, with balanced migration and a fertility rate of 1.55 children per woman, the UK could lower its population to 53 million people by 2050 – 15-16 million, or over two Londons, fewer than projected. (The fertility rate is currently over 1.7).

*Each Briton born today will “consume” on average at least 2,780 tonnes of raw materials and natural resources in their lifetime. In weight terms, this is equivalent to over 360 red London (Routemaster) buses, around 1,080 sports utility vehicles (Range Rovers) or more than 278,000 mountain bikes. The figure excludes water. (Source: ONS, Environmental Acounts. The total material requirement of the UK economy was 2,112 million tonnes in 2004. UK life expectancy at birth is 79. A Routemaster bus weighs 7.6 tonnes, a Range Rover 2.57 tonnes, a mountain bike 10 kilograms).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Telephone 07976-370 221 or see www.optimumpopulation.org. Or contact the following:

Rosamund McDougall, OPT advisory council: 07799 384083 (mobile)

David Nicholson-Lord, OPT research associate: 020 8693 5789

Prof John Guillebaud, OPT co-chair: 01865 863 982 or 07779 180188 (mobile)

Val Stevens, OPT co-chair: 01509 843109