What happens if China’s “one child” is left behind?

Robert Engelman – March 3, 2008 – 1:36pm

Based on a senior official’s remarks, it looks like China may soon relax its one-child policy. That has raised fears among some demographers that the country will experience a massive baby boom once the reproductive shackles come off, and hence “could overturn predictions of an imminent end to global population growth,” in the words of New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin.

Almost one in five human beings is Chinese (1.3 billion out of a global total of 6.7 billion), so the country matters immensely to human numbers. But there’s an assumption embedded in this discussion that deserves to be challenged. How do we know it’s the one-child policy that actually explains China’s current low fertility? Could factors outside of the heavy-handed government framework of fines and sanctions continue to keep Chinese families small even if that framework becomes less heavy-handed?

After all, families are small (and getting smaller) in lots of countries where governments don’t dictate their size. And surveys indicate that three out of five Chinese under the age of 30 want no more than two children, with very few wanting more than three. The government estimates (and not all demographers trust this) that Chinese women now have an average of 1.8 children each over their lifetimes. That alone tells us the one-child policy is ineffective at driving births down to a national rate anywhere close to one child per woman.

Paradoxically, women in Taiwan and in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao actually have about one child on average, and the one-child policy has never been a factor for these populations. True, they’re not fully comparable to China’s population as a whole, but their hyper-low fertility does speak to the feasibility of achieving lower fertility based not on coercive policies but on the reproductive choices of couples and individuals and good access to family planning services.

Chinese fertility rates began falling long before the one-child policy went into effect in 1979. Women had an average of more than six children in the early 1950s, and that average had fallen by more than half by the late 1970s. It has continued to fall since the introduction of the one-child policy, but less rapidly than in those earlier decades and no more rapidly than fertility has fallen elsewhere in the world.

No one would argue that China’s one-child policy has no impact at all on the country’s population growth. But to attribute a demographic “savings” of 300 million “never-born” people to that policy, as some Chinese officials have done, is to ignore the many other reasons women have fewer children than their mothers or older sisters did. These reasons—which I explore in a book available next month, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want—include women’s aspirations to educate themselves and find satisfying employment, not to mention decent access to effective contraception.

China’s hothouse economic growth and improving social welfare programs are also likely to continue to encourage smaller families. Just possibly, so does the keen awareness among its citizens that the country’s environmental challenges are closely related to its giant and still-growing population.

Chinese women and couples undoubtedly want the same high-quality health care and contraceptive options that women do elsewhere in the world. Whether an end to global population growth is imminent has much more to do with policies in all countries that help people reach those aspirations than with policies in any one country, no matter how populous, that dictate how many children a woman can have.

Robert Engelman is Vice President for Programs at the Worldwatch Institute and author of the forthcoming book More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, published by Island Press.

Challenging China's Climate Change Babies

Excuses, inaction only add to global warming burden

Opinion - October 02, 2007 Jakarta Post

Jonathan Lassa

China recently claimed its "one-child policy", forcibly imposed three decades ago, had prevented 300 million births (a figure equal to the population of the United States), and consequently had helped to fight global warming.

In other words, China claimed to have preempted the concept of "Climate Change babies" long before the global consensus on climate change ever existed.

Q: Should the China's one-child policy be credited as "a self-enforced" policy to tackle climate change at a domestic level? Does the argument help promote China's image as a great nation, set to become the next global super power?

A: Unfortunately, no.

Climate change policy analysts may have reason to doubt China's claims, not only because of the dubious relationship between China's climate change and population growth policies, but because China's administration has been suspected of steering toward "business as usual" policies, taking advantage of low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita, while ignoring the fact that as a country, China remains the second largest GHG emitter in the world.

If there has ever been a case to be pessimistic about tackling climate change, we can hope this is its antithesis.

Five years ago, a study of the Kyoto Protocol predicted that even if "it succeeds in reducing GHG emission of the Annex 1 countries, ... it may increase the emissions of other non-annex 1 countries," such as China, India and the rest of developing world -- and evidently this has occurred (see Barret 2003: 383).

Don't be misled; the treaty has been far from successful given the fact that (apart from "stubborn" states such as the U.S. and Australia that continue to undermine its importance) the GHG emission reductions in Annex 1 countries have been slow, while China, Indonesia, India and Brazil have become the biggest polluters outside the U.S. and Russia.

It may not be fair or even helpful to liken the Kyoto Treaty to a giant sinking ship, (bigger than the Titanic) with passengers from 175 countries, nobly intending to prevent the planet from catastrophe.

Meanwhile there are huge expectations for the next COP Meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Bali in December. As host country, Indonesia has announced 7 items on its agenda: adaptation, mitigation, clean development mechanisms (CDM), financial mechanisms, technology and capacity building, reduced deforestation and post-Kyoto protocol mechanisms.

The old scenario of the Indonesian government domestic agenda prioritization vs. clear mitigation and adaptation measures may yet appear. In a World Bank sponsored study it was shown that 85 percent of Indonesia's CO2 emission comes from forestry, followed by energy consumption (9 percent), agriculture (4.6 percent) and waste pollution (1.4 percent). (PEACE 2007:2 Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies).

Recent news saw the Australian government, once again playing "good neighbor", pledge A$100 million, adding to Uncle Sam's US$20 million pledge toward reforestation. This money could potentially serve as a means for Indonesia to deal with forest conservation and better peatland management.

Provided it can overcome moral hazards i.e. corruption, the "reforestation aid", can definitely "contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions" (The Jakarta Post Sept. 12, 2007).

Despite growing concerns over the impact of city populations predicted to outgrow rural populations next year, Indonesia's population growth has been 1.1 percent annually for the last five years, so the birth rate is obviously not the main concern for Indonesia at present.

The other good news is, for Indonesia, unlike India and China, "climate change babies" should not be the issue at the moment. However, the question remains; "are there any 'climate change babies'?"

Regardless of naive climate change excuses, or perhaps the "moral hazard" of China's Kyoto Protocol stance, present lack of clear clean energy policy (as it currently enjoys a "developing nation" status), and attempts to retroactively credit its one-child policy to its climate change mitigation agenda, China is not 100 percent wrong in pointing out that birth control is one of several means to tackle climate change. This concept has been discussed in the Malthusian crisis narratives which suggest that population plays a significant role in environmental management on a planetary scale.

Unlike Hindus, Judeo-Christians and Moslems share a belief that humans have not preexisted. In population studies, I would argue, however, future generations do in fact preexist, and thus, future earth polluters also preexist. A logical conclusion would be that birth control in one way or another will help humans achieve a sustainable future.

Please also bear in mind that no rights of unborn children would be violated if good global population governance is put in place.

Conversely the rights of future generations are clearly under threat when giant nations such as the U.S., China, India and economic world leaders such as Australia, do not share the same willingness to cooperate as other developed nations providing good leadership in tackling climate change for the rest of the developing and underdeveloped world.

Despite Australian and U.S. efforts in self-enforced climate change mitigation, without their multilateral cooperation, their persistent enjoyment of a unilateral approach will deny future generations the right to enjoy a sustainable future.

Similarly, China's nonsense "climate change babies" excuses in the discourse of global climate change management, will lead to the same miserable future that the U.S. and Australia are blindly wandering towards.

The writer is a PhD candidate in disaster governance at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn. He can be reached at jonatan.lassa@gmail.com or jonatan.lassa@uni-bonn.de

Politik Lumpur Sidoarjo, Ilmiah Saja Tidak Cukup [teropong kompas]

Sabtu, 1 Maret 2008 | 02:49 WIB

Yuti Ariani

“Itu perlu suatu penelitian yang mendalam. Saya kira tidak bisa dinyatakan secara politik (oleh DPR). Bencana alam atau bukan, itu bukan masalah politis.” Wapres Muhammad Jusuf Kalla (Kompas, 19/2)

Penelitian penyebab semburan lumpur Lapindo di Kabupaten Sidoarjo membagi ilmuwan menjadi dua kubu, yakni yang berpendapat akibat bencana alam dan kesalahan Lapindo. Para ilmuwan dari masing-masing kubu memiliki argumentasi ilmiah akan penyebab semburan tersebut. Prof Dr Sukendar Asikin, Dr Doddy Nawangsidi dari Institut Teknologi Bandung, dan Dr Ir Agus Guntoro dari Universitas Trisakti yang dipanggil oleh Tim Pengawas Penanggulangan Lumpur Sidoarjo menganggap semburan lumpur akibat bencana alam. Lain halnya dengan Andang Bachtiar, mantan Ketua Ikatan Ahli Geologi Indonesia. Ia memandang semburan tersebut disebabkan oleh terlalu kentalnya lumpur yang digunakan untuk meredam kick hingga tekanannya mengakibatkan dinding sumur pecah. Pendapat semburan lumpur adalah akibat kesalahan Lapindo juga dikemukakan oleh Dr Rudi Rubiandini, mantan Ketua Tim Investigasi Independen Lumpur Lapindo. (Tempo, 25/2)

Dalam dunia akademik, perbedaan pendapat merupakan hal lumrah. Namun, ketika pendapat tersebut berimplikasi pada pihak yang menjadi penanggung jawab dalam penanggulangan bencana, termasuk soal biaya, benarkah ilmiah saja cukup? Lebih jauh, bagaimana landasan ilmiah tersebut dibangun?

Andang Bachtiar dan Ali Azhar Akbar menyoroti cara Lapindo menyajikan hasil analisa dalam forum-forum diskusi tanpa pernah membuka data. Padahal, menurut Rudi Rubiandini, data tekanan selama pengeboran yang dimiliki oleh kepolisian sudah bisa dijadikan bahan bukti bahwa semburan disebabkan aktivitas pengeboran LBI. Pengabaian proses juga dilakukan oleh Lapindo dengan menggelar lokakarya ”International Geological Workshop on Sidoarjo Mud Volcano” di Jakarta, Februari 2007, yang memberi kesimpulan bahwa semburan lumpur itu terjadi karena fenomena geologi yang disebut erupsi mud volcano. Lokakarya tersebut tidak mengundang ilmuwan-ilmuwan dari kubu kontrabencana alam.

Politisasi alam

Adanya penekanan pada kelompok ilmuwan tertentu dan pengabaian terhadap ilmuwan lainnya mengindikasikan ketidaksetaraan. Kondisi ini dipicu kepentingan pihak-pihak tertentu untuk memperoleh legitimasi ilmiah atas penyebab lumpur Sidoarjo dengan mempromosikan ilmuwan-ilmuwan yang mendukung kepentingan mereka dan menafikan kelompok lainnya. Iklan di media massa yang mengutip analisa sejumlah geolog ternama, serta seminar yang menghadirkan ilmuwan-ilmuwan prolumpur sebagai bencana menempatkan pendapat ilmuwan di ranah politis. Pertarungannya tak lagi mengenai kebenaran ilmiah per se, melainkan bagaimana pengetahuan itu menjadi bagian dari narasi yang lebih besar untuk mendukung kepentingan tertentu.

Bruno Latour mengulas bagaimana realitas ilmiah dibangun atas sejumlah transformasi. Dari penelusuran yang dilakukan Latour di Salk Institute pada pertengahan 1970, muncul penafsiran-penafsiran atas realitas ilmiah. Latour mengamati pada saat seorang ilmuwan mengatakan ia melihat sebuah blip dalam kurva, realitas sosial menghilang bersama-sama dengan bagaimana kebenaran baru ini diproduksi. Kebenaran ini membangkitkan dua domain yang berbeda, yaitu realitas di satu sisi dan pengetahuan akan realitas di sisi lain (realitas ilmiah).

Relasi antara realitas dan pengetahuan akan realitas merupakan obyek yang acap dikritisi oleh para penentang obyektivisme sains. Hal ini diungkapkan oleh Max Weber, ”Kepercayaan pada nilai-nilai kebenaran ilmiah tidak dihela oleh alam, tapi merupakan produk dari budaya tertentu.” Lebih jauh, Robert K Merton berpendapat, ”Kepercayaan pada kebenaran ilmiah ditransmisikan antara keraguan dan ketidakpercayaan. Perkembangan persisten dari sains muncul di masyarakat dalam pola tertentu, subyek khas yang kompleks dari perkiraan tacit dan batasan institusi. Apa yang bagi kita merupakan sebuah fenomena tanpa membutuhkan penjelasan dan terjamin dalam swapembuktian nilai-nilai budaya, pada waktu lain dan tempat yang berbeda dipandang abnormal dan langka. Keberlanjutan sains mensyaratkan partisipasi aktif dari orang-orang yang tertarik dan memiliki kemampuan dalam pencarian ilmiah. Namun, dukungan terhadap sains ini hanya terjamin oleh (eksistensi) kondisi-kondisi sosiokultural tertentu.”

Membuka kotak hitam pengetahuan

Weber dan Merton menyoroti keterkaitan antara pengetahuan dan konteks sosiokultural di mana ia diproduksi. Para ilmuwan yang dipromosikan oleh kelompok Lapindo, misalnya, memberikan kesimpulan lumpur sebagai bencana. Hal ini menyebabkan wacana lumpur yang menyebar di masyarakat bukan lagi pertarungan antara kebenaran ilmiah, melainkan upaya untuk menarik simpati massa.

Menurut Pierre Bourdieu, label ilmuwan merupakan perwujudan modal simbolik. Kondisi ini berimplikasi pada pertarungan wacana kubu pro dan kontra dengan mengutip ilmuwan-ilmuwan yang dapat melegitimasi pendapat mereka. Dengan memandang ilmuwan sebagai modal simbolik, akumulasi modal yang dilakukan kubu pro maupun kontra sama-sama menempatkan ilmuwan sebagai bagian dari penguatan retorika. Pertanyaannya kemudian, apa yang membuat seorang ilmuwan disebut ilmuwan?

Praksisnya, label ilmuwan yang disematkan kepada seseorang terkait dengan aktivitas di laboratorium, afiliasi di forum/asosiasi ilmiah, serta publikasi di jurnal. Keterkaitan dengan komunitas ilmiah yang telah ada sebelumnya menjadi legitimasi untuk menyatakan apakah seseorang dapat disebut sebagai ilmuwan atau tidak. Dalam penulisan jurnal, keterkaitan ini bisa terlihat dari referensi yang digunakan seorang ilmuwan untuk mendukung pendapat yang ia kemukakan. Kian klasik jurnal yang ia rujuk, kian besar modal simbolik yang ia peroleh.

Relasi linier ini menjadi bermasalah ketika referensi yang sama menghasilkan kesimpulan bertolak belakang sebagaimana terjadi pada kasus lumpur Sidoarjo. Meski sama-sama menghadapi realitas fisik lumpur, namun analisa para ilmuwan memberi hasil yang beragam. Berimbangnya kedua pendapat ini menyebabkan negosiasi penanganan lumpur Sidoarjo tidak bisa hanya dilandaskan penafsiran akan alam, tapi juga memperhitungkan kepentingan korban lumpur yang hingga kini masih terkatung-katung.

Yuti Ariani Alumnus Program Magister Studi Pembangunan ITB; Mengerjakan penelitian di ranah Science, Technology and Society