Sustainable Population Australia Expert Alert: World Population Day, 11 July.
On World Population Day (11 July), Sustainable Population Australia is urging national and global leaders to confront the unsustainable pace of population growth – a primary but often neglected driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and global inequality.
Themes for World Population Day (WPD) 25 include ‘family planning as a human right’ and ‘adapting to rapid population growth while ensuring sustainability.’
SPA experts are available to comment on a range of topics relating to WPD.
Mr Peter Strachan, National President, Sustainable Population Australia
Comments attributable to Mr Strachan:
“We passed five billion people in 1987. Today, we’re at 8.2 billion and rising fast, but the planet isn’t expanding with us.”
“While the human population continues to escalate, insect population are crashing. Can humans adapt to the loss of pollinators that support food production, or the extinction of so many plants and animals?”
“Safeguarding the health and rights of girls and women must include ensuring that all women have control over their reproductive rights through free and voluntary access to family planning with an aim of stabilising and then reducing the number of humans impacting on the planet’s biophysical environment.”
Mr Michael Bayliss, Spokesperson and Communications Manager, Sustainable Population Australia
Comments attributable to Mr Bayliss:
“The real injustice is ignoring how reproductive healthcare and climate resilience are linked – especially in the world’s poorest communities.”
“Australia’s aid budget is lower now than it was 20 years ago. We need a recommitment to the UN’s target of 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) spent on international aid. It currently stands at a disgraceful 0.2 per cent.”
“At a time in which nearly half of global pregnancies are unintended, access to reproductive healthcare is being further disrupted by the conservative, pronatal policies of the U.S.A., in conjunction with political turmoil in many countries that disrupt health services and expose women to greater threats of sexual violence.”
“As detailed in the SPA report ‘Population and Climate Change’, climate mitigation models show that sufficient emissions reduction cannot be achieved unless the model scenarios assume a rapid peak and decline in global population. Population stabilisation alone can’t solve climate change, but ignoring population will ensure we fail.”
Prof. Anne Poelina, Patron, Sustainable Population Australia
Comments attributable to Prof. Poelina:
“In a time of climate crisis, do we choose unsustainable growth and business as usual, or do we pause and take a deeper breath and choose a sustainable future? What is our reality, ‘cost of living’ or ‘economic democracy’?”
If we fail to ensure the wealth extracted from our lands and water is not invested into the social good of our people, we will be in no position to consider the wellbeing of our Australian and Torres Strait Islanders citizens. What then is the hope for Pacifica peoples, as climate refugees?”
Dr. Paul Collins, Patron, Sustainable Population Australia
Comments attributable to Dr. Collins:
“Nowadays you need courage to speak about limiting world overpopulation. But speak we must, because our human numbers are one of the primary factors driving global warming and species extinction.”
“We live in a world obsessed with growth and development and we’ve lost any sense of limits. We must recover the humility to realise that we are part of nature and that our future depends on the health of the natural world. But overpopulation and resource use put unbearable pressure on the Earth. We must talk about overpopulation.”