Plenary Session

Social Challenges and Demographics

Monday, 27 April 2009

Session Abstract

Though demographic and social challenges are in many ways synonymous with human dimensions research, they have not yet been fully explored or placed at the centre of the global environmental change research agenda. Issues of demography interact with many special issue areas of global change such as health, urbanisation, pollution and resource usage. Environmental change is expected to alter the availability of resources such as the availability of freshwater, the productive capacity of soils and patterns of human settlement. We do not, however, know the extent and geographical distribution of these changes, nor can we know how environmental change may influence human societies and political systems. In terms of population growth, the almost exponential increase of the world population in the last century is part and parcel of the global changes we are experiencing, but is generally hardly discussed as such. Yet the demographic explosion poses several major challenges from a variety of perspectives: from an economic perspective (“Who will pay for increasingly expensive health care of growing societies and, in many parts of the world, aging population?”), from a perspective of food security (“How many more people can we feed and at which level of food consumption?”), from an urbanisation perspective (“How do we manage the growing number of cities with over 20 million inhabitants?”) as well as from perspectives encompassing forced migration, human security and poverty. We urgently need to posit such difficult questions as “How real is the predicted reduction in population growth rate after the middle of this century?”, “What will its effect be on total consumption if, as is predicted, the reduction in population growth is mainly dependent on increase in per capita wealth and consumption?”, “What is the impact of improved health and increased aging?”, “What are the internal social feedbacks that impact demography and vice-versa?”, “What influences and causes perceptions and belief systems on demographic challenges?” and “What is the nature of demographic change, its drivers and impacts?”

Session Chair

Lori Hunter
Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA

Keynote Speakers

Wolfgang Lutz
Leader, World Population Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

"World Population, Human Capital and Climate Change"

Watch Part 1 of Wolfgang Lutz's Speech
Watch Part 2 of Wolfgang Lutz's Speech
Watch Part 3 of Wolfgang Lutz's Speech
Download Presentation PDF

Flavia Pansieri
Executive Coordinator, United Nations Volunteers (UNV), Germany

"Policy and People, United Nations Volunteers"

Watch Part 1 of Flavia Pansieri's Speech
Watch Part 2 of Flavia Pansieri's Speech

Xizhe Peng
Dean, School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

The relationship between population and environment: The case of China

Watch Part 1 of Xizhe Peng's Speech
Watch Part 2 of Xizhe Peng's Speech
Download Presentation PDF