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WO RLD PO PUL at ION MO NI to RING 2001 Population, Environment and Development ST/ESA/SER.A/203 DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS POPULATION DIVISION WOR L D POP U L AT I O N MON I TO R I N G 2001 Population, environment and development asdf United Nations • Ne w York, 2001 NOTE The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The designations “developed” and “developing” for countries and “more developed” and “less developed” for regions are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country or area in the development process. The term “country” as used in the text of the present publication also refers, as appropriate, to territories or areas. ST/ESA/SER.A/203 United Nations publication Sales No. E.01.XIII.17 ISBN 92-1-151359-6 Copyright © United Nations, 2001 All rights reserved Litho in United Nations, NewYork United Nations publication 49331—December 2001—6,600 Sales No. E.01.XIII.17 ISBN 92-1-151359-6 ST/ESA/SER.A/203 PREFACE The present report has been prepared in response to Eco- panied by a summarized version, the “concise report” nomic and Social Council resolution 1995/55 of 28 July (E/CN.9/2001/2). Each of these reports is presented and dis- 1995, in which the Council endorsed the terms of reference cussed at the Commission and then revised for publication. and the topic-oriented and prioritized multi-year work Presented here is the revised version of the full report on the programme proposed by the Commission on Population and theme “Population, environment and development”. 1 Development at its twenty-eight session. According to the The report was prepared by the Population Division of the multi-year work programme, which was to serve as a frame- Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United work for the assessment of the progress achieved in the im- Nations. The Population Division gratefully acknowledges plementation of the Programme of Action of the Professor Richard Bilsborrow of the University of North 2 International Conference on Population and Development, a Carolina for his work on chapter V on migration, population new series of reports on a special set of the themes would be change and the rural environment. The Population Division prepared annually. The Commission, in its decisions 1999/1 is also grateful to the United Nations Statistics Division for 3 and 2000/1, decided that the special theme for the year 2001 the preparation of the annex on data availability and data should be population, environment and development, which quality. In January 2000, the Population Division organized is the topic of the present report. a one-day seminar on population, environment and develop- The general trends of rapid population growth, sustained ment. We would like to thank the participants at that seminar but uneven economic improvement and environmental deg- for their useful suggestions on the outline and on issues to be radation are generally well accepted. However, how popu- considered for the report, namely, Professor Richard lation size and growth, environmental change and develop- Bilsborrow (University of North Carolina), Dr. Maria ment interact on each other is not well established. This Concepcion-Cruz (World Bank), Professor Joel Cohen report reviews what is known about these interrelationships. (Rockefeller University), Professor Tim Dyson (London The report analyses recent information and policy perspec- School of Economics), Dr. Gerhard Heilig (International In- tives on population, environment and development. The top- stitute for Applied Systems Analysis), Professor David Lam ics investigated in this report include: the evolution of (University of Michigan), Dr. Catherine Marie Marquette population and the environment at major United Nations (Chr. Michelsen Institute) and Professor Luis Rosero-Bixby conferences; temporal trends in population, environment and (University of Costa Rica). development; government views and policies concerning For further information, please contact the office of population, environment and development; population size Mr. Joseph Chamie, Director, Population Division, United and growth, environment and development; migration, popu- Nations, New York, 10017, USA. lation change and the rural environment; health, mortality, fertility and the environment; and population, environment, and development in urban settings. The presentation of these topics is followed by conclusions thereon. Annex I deals with NOTES the availability and quality of data; and annex II deals with theories and frameworks for modelling the impact of popula- 1Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1995, Supplement tion growth on the physical environment. No.7 (E/1995/27), annexes I and II. 2Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, As requested by the Economic and Social Council, the Cairo, 5-13 September 1994 (United Nations publication, Sales No. Population Division, Department of Economic and Social E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex. Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, annually prepares 3See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1999, Supple- the world population monitoring report on the topic of that ment No. 5 (E/1999/25), chap. I, sect. C; and ibid., 2000, Supplement No. 5 year’s session of the Commission. The full report is accom- (E/2000/25), chap. I, sect. B. iii CONTENTS Page Preface .............................................. iii Explanatory notes ........................................ viii INTRODUCTION ......................................... 1 Chapter I. THE EVOLUTION OF POPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT AT MAJOR UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCES ...................................... 3 A. The early involvement of the Population Commission .............. 3 B. United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972). 3 C. United Nations World Population Conference (Bucharest, 1974) . 3 D. International Conference on Population (Mexico City, 1984) .......... 4 E. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992)........................................ 4 F. Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States (Bridgetown, Barbados, 1994) ....................... 5 G. International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) . 5 H. United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) (Istanbul, 1996) 6 I. Nineteenth special session of the General Assembly to review and appraise the implementation of Agenda 21 (United Nations, New York, 1997) . 7 J. Twenty-first special session of the General Assembly for an overall review and appraisal of the Implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (United Nations, New York, 1999) 7 K. Conclusions .................................... 7 II. TEMPORAL TRENDS IN POPULATION, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT. 9 A. Population trends ................................. 9 B. Economic growth and poverty........................... 12 C. Energy consumption and emissions ........................ 14 D. Trends in agriculture, food and land use ..................... 16 E. Water ....................................... 19 F. Forests and biodiversity .............................. 20 III. GOVERNMENT VIEWS AND POLICIES CONCERNING POPULATION, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ...................................... 24 A. Population and environmental policies ...................... 24 B. Public opinion regarding the environment .................... 26 C. Integration of population and environmental policies. 27 IV. POPULATION SIZE AND GROWTH, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT . 28 A. Background .................................... 28 B. Population and resources ............................. 29 C. Relating population and environment: the I = PAT framework. 35 D. Conclusions .................................... 38 V. MIGRATION, POPULATION CHANGE AND THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT . 41 A. The size and growth of the rural population.................... 41 B. Conceptualizing the linkages between population, migration and the rural environment .................................... 44 v Chapter Page C. Impacts of migration on the rural environment in developing countries . 47 D. Effects of environmental change on out-migration from rural areas . 50 E. Conclusion..................................... 51 VI. HEALTH, MORTALITY, FERTILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT . 54 A. Modern environmental threats........................... 54 B. Traditional environmental threats ......................... 56 C. New and re-emerging diseases .......................... 60 D. Concluding remarks ................................ 61 VII. POPULATION, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN SETTINGS . 64 A. The relationship between city population size, rate of growth and urban environ- mental problems .................................. 64 B. The city environment ............................... 65 C. Water pollution .................................. 65 D. Sanitation ..................................... 66 E. Solid waste..................................... 66 F. Air pollution .................................... 66 G. Environmental impacts on urban health...................... 68 H. Cities and sustainable development .......................
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