Implications of Australia's Population Policy for Future Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets

Bradshaw, Corey J. A.; Brook, Barry W.

doi:10.1002/app5.135

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(35 reference statements)

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“…Volunteering in old age is a sizable economic sector; a study in Canada proposed that even with conservative estimates of hourly wage, the sector was worth 2 billion US dollars in 2008 ( 270 ). Third, ignoring the cost savings associated with fewer children <15 years old artificially inflates the dependency ratio ( 271 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Net benefit of smaller human populations to environmental integrity and individual health and wellbeing

Saraswati,

Judge,

Weeda

et al. 2024

Front. Public Health

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IntroductionThe global human population is still growing such that our collective enterprise is driving environmental catastrophe. Despite a decline in average population growth rate, we are still experiencing the highest annual increase of global human population size in the history of our species—averaging an additional 84 million people per year since 1990. No review to date has accumulated the available evidence describing the associations between increasing population and environmental decline, nor solutions for mitigating the problems arising.MethodsWe summarize the available evidence of the relationships between human population size and growth and environmental integrity, human prosperity and wellbeing, and climate change. We used PubMed, Google Scholar, and Web of Science to identify all relevant peer-reviewed and gray-literature sources examining the consequences of human population size and growth on the biosphere. We reviewed papers describing and quantifying the risks associated with population growth, especially relating to climate change.ResultsThese risks are global in scale, such as greenhouse-gas emissions, climate disruption, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and spread of disease—all potentially catastrophic for human standards of living, health, and general wellbeing. The trends increasing the risks of global population growth are country development, demographics, maternal education, access to family planning, and child and maternal health.ConclusionSupport for nations still going through a demographic transition is required to ensure progress occurs within planetary boundaries and promotes equity and human rights. Ensuring the wellbeing for all under this aim itself will lower population growth and further promote environmental sustainability.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But if immigration is used to increase population growth per se ( cf. fill labor vacancies), the concomitant increase in resource use and emissions resulting from immigrants increasing their per capita consumption rates upon successful migration to higher-income nations ( 271 , 272 ) contribute to growing environmental damage.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Net benefit of smaller human populations to environmental integrity and individual health and wellbeing

Saraswati,

Judge,

Weeda

et al. 2024

Front. Public Health

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“…For Australia, analyses can be done for at least 10 years for the whole country at an SA1 level. Given that climate change will exert the greatest threat to children's health in coming years, 31,32 ongoing monitoring of the Australia-wide data will allow the emerging effect of climate change on child health to be monitored, providing information that has the potential to be used in mitigation strategies. Future predictions of disease burdens can also be modelled using forward projections of climate and population demography.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatially explicit analyses of environmental and health data to determine past, emerging and future threats to child health

Souëf

Saraswati

Judge

et al. 2021

J Paediatrics Child Health

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BackgroundDire forecasts predict that an increasingly hostile environment globally will increase the threats to human health. Infants and young children are especially at risk because children are particularly vulnerable to climate‐related stressors. The childhood diseases most affected, the breadth and magnitude of future health problems and the time frame over which these problems will manifest remain largely unknown.ObjectivesTo review the possibility that spacially explicit analyses can be used to determine how climate change has affected children's health to date and whether these analyses can be used for future projections.MethodsAs an example of whether these objectives can be achieved, all available Australian environmental and health databases were reviewed.ResultsEnvironmental and health data in Australia have been collected for up to 30 years for the same spatial areas at ‘Statistical Area level 1’ (SA1) scale. SA1s are defined as having a population of between 200 and 800 people and collectively they cover the whole of Australia without gaps or overlap. Although the SA1 environmental and health data have been collected separately, they can be merged to allow detailed statistical analyses that can determine how climate change has affected the health of children.ConclusionsThe availability of environmental and health datasets that share the same precise spatial coordinates provides a pathway whereby past and emerging effects on child health can be measured and predicted into the future. Given that the future health and well‐being of children is one of society's greatest concerns, this information is urgently needed.

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“…Despite Australia having a relatively small human population by global standards (25 million) and one of the lowest population densities in the world (3.25 km -2 ) (Bradshaw and Brook 2016; World Bank 2018), Australia's terrestrial biodiversity is not doing well. Australia is home to an estimated 566,000 species, of which only about 150,000 have been described formally (Chapman 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These invasive plants and animals not only threaten native species that largely evolved in isolation from such pressures, they also cost Australia billions of dollars each year to control them and in lost economic opportunity Hoffmann and Broadhurst 2016). Australians also have a massive ecological footprint (footprintnetwork.com) -as a population we are using over four times what would be considered ecologically sustainable in the long term, due in part to our exorbitant per-capita greenhouse-gas emissions (25 t CO 2 -e person -1 yr -1 ) (Bradshaw and Brook 2016) and water use (6300 l person -1 day -1 ; watercalculator.org). As such, a 2010 study calculated that Australia's overall environmental performance was the 9 th worst of all nations in the world (Bradshaw et al 2010), and Australia ranked 37 th in the world on progress toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (Sachs et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities to improve the future of South Australia’s terrestrial biodiversity

Bradshaw¹

2019

ReEco

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It is unequivocal that the poor condition of South Australia’s terrestrial biodiversity is continuing to decline overall – much like elsewhere in Australia. This decline is mainly due to the legacy of vegetation clearing and habitat modification since European colonisation, the destructive influence of invasive species (especially predators like cats and foxes) on its native fauna and flora, and impotent or broken legislation to prevent further damage. The struggle to maintain our remaining biodiversity, and our intentions to restore once-healthy ecosystems, are rendered even more difficult by the added influence of rapid climate disruption. Despite the pessimistic outlook, South Australians have successfully employed several effective conservation mechanisms, including increasing the coverage of our network of protected areas, doing ecological restoration projects, reducing the densities of feral animals across landscapes, encouraging private landholders to protect their biodiversity assets, releasing environmental water flows to rivers and wetlands, and bringing more people in touch with nature. While these strategies are certainly stepping in the right direction, our policies and conservation targets have been hampered by arbitrary baselines, a lack of cohesion among projects and associated legislation, unrepresentative protected areas, and inappropriate spatial and time scales of intervention. While the challenges are many, there are several tractable and affordable actions that can be taken immediately to improve the prospect of the State’s biodiversity into the near future. These include coordinating existing and promoting broader-scale ecological restoration projects, establishing strategic and evidence-based control of invasive species, planning more representative protected-area networks that are managed effectively for conservation outcomes, fixing broken environmental legislation, avoiding or severely limiting biodiversity-offset incentives, expanding conservation covenants on private land, coordinating a state-wide monitoring network and protocol that tells the South Australian community how effective we are with our policies and actions, expanding existing conservation investment and tapping into different funding schemes, and coordinating better communication and interaction among government and non-governmental environment agencies. Having a more transparent and defensible link between specific conservation actions and targeted outcomes will also likely improve confidence that conservation investments are well-spent. With just a little more effort, coordination, funding, and foresight, South Australia has the opportunity to become a pillar of biodiversity conservation.

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Implications of Australia's Population Policy for Future Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets

Cited by 10 publications

References 39 publications

Net benefit of smaller human populations to environmental integrity and individual health and wellbeing

Net benefit of smaller human populations to environmental integrity and individual health and wellbeing

Spatially explicit analyses of environmental and health data to determine past, emerging and future threats to child health

Opportunities to improve the future of South Australia’s terrestrial biodiversity

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