Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

In preparation for my professional review I’ve been doing some research into the Bruntland Report ‘Our Common Future’ and was looking to see how much it influenced the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

For the most part it seems that many of the points raised by Bruntland do feature in one way or another in the SDGs… with the exception of population growth – the elephant in the room.

Below are some excerpts of the report regarding population growth:

The planet is passing through a period of dramatic growth and fundamental change. Our human world of 5 billion must make room in a finite environment for another human world. The population could stabilize at between 8 and 14 billion sometime next century, according to UN projections. More than 90 per cent of the increase will occur in the poorest countries, and 90 per cent of that growth in already bursting cities.

In many parts of the world, the population is growing at rates that cannot be sustained by available environmental resources, at rates that are outstripping any reasonable expectations of improvements in housing, health care, food security, or energy supplies.

Urgent steps are needed to limit extreme rates of population growth. Choices made now will influence the level at which the population stabilizes next century within a range of 6 billion people.

Given population growth rates, a five- to tenfold increase in manufacturing output will be needed just to raise developing world consumption of manufactured goods to industrialized world levels by the time population growth rates level off next century.

The rapid rise in population has compromised the ability to raise living standards.

Our Common Future, Bruntland

Given how heavily the idea that population growth should me managed/limited featured in the Bruntland report, I found it interesting that population control wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the UN SDGs.

There are both political and ethical issues when addressing population control, not least because population booms are typically occurring in less developed countries.

But the point remains that population growth is one of largest threats to the climate in the short term, yet it’s too delicate of an issue to address. What’s the solution?

Elements of the issue are explored in more detail in a blog post here.