Population and Climate Change

A “Malthusian” theory about the relationship between population growth and the environment suggests that as populations grow, they will strip their resources leading to famine, hunger and environmental degradation.
As detailed further in this site’s section on population, that is an oversimplification and has largely shown not to be true. Instead, it has been factors such as politics and economics (i.e. how we use our resources and for what purpose) that has determined environmental degradation or sustainability.
For example, the world’s wealthiest 20% (i.e. the rich countries) consume approximately 80% of the world’s resources, while the rest of humanity shares the other 20% of resource consumed, as noted in the consumption section of this web site.
In regards to climate change, countries with large populations such as China and India have not been the countries contributing greenhouse gases for the decades that has been required to trigger climate change, as noted further above.
While in total amounts their emissions might be high (China is second largest emitter after the United States, for example), per person, their emissions are significantly smaller as noted earlier.
The atmosphere of course doesn’t “care” so to speak, but from the perspective of international relations, this is important: As stated above, penalizing developing countries for the problem mostly caused by the rich countries is not seen as fair by the developing world and so they will understandably resist demands by Bush, Blair and others to meet the same types of targets as industrialized nations.
An additional concern however, is that as countries such as China, India and Brazil grow in prosperity, there will be large populations with purchasing power, consuming more goods and services, thus making more demands on the planet.
Indeed, many environmentalists have constantly noted that if such countries were to follow the style of development that the rich countries used and emulate them, then our planet may not be able to cope much longer.
Yet, as also noted in this site’s population section, researchers have found that depending on what variables you factor in, the planet can support an extremely large population, or an extremely small one. These ranges are ridiculously wide: from 2 billion to 147 billion people! Why such variance? It depends on how efficiently resources are used and for what purpose (i.e. economics).
There are concerns, however, that many developing countries are pursuing the same path to development that the current industrialized countries have, which involved many environmentally damaging practices. Ironically much of the advise and encouragement to follow this path comes from the western economic schools of thought. There is therefore an urgent need to focus on cleaner technologies and an alternative path to a more sustainable form of development.
Journalist Diplip Hiro captures this quite well, when interviewed by Amy Goodman for the radio/TV broadcast of the Democracy Now! show:
2 out of 5 human beings are Indians and Chinese … 2.4 billion people. Last year, China’s oil consumption went up by 15%. That means they’re doubling oil consumption every five years, quadrupling it every ten years. And … India … 8%.
… In the USA, there are 800 vehicles … for 1,000 American men, women and children. In India, there are 8 vehicles for 1,000 Indians, men, women and children. Now, suppose India progresses economically, and you change that figure from 8 to 18 or 80, can you imagine how much oil will be required? And that is something which one has to face up to.
… And at that time [that oil peaks in production and starts its decline, in] India and China, the demand will rise. So what will happen? The price of oil will go up to … $200 a barrel.
And, you see … the internal combustion engine, can be fueled by natural gas, by hydrogen cells and by solar panels. And that’s already happening. You know, Toyota actually has hundreds of cars running on hydrogen cells. They have supplies of them in Tokyo. And I would say in ten to fifteen years time, a high proportion of cars will be run by fuel other than petroleum product. And that is the only way we can actually save ourselves from a catastrophe, which will come if we go on the present path.
— Blood of the Earth: Dilip Hiro on the Battle for the World’s Vanishing Oil Resources, Democracy Now!, January 31, 2007
So, as Dilip Hiro has noted, the high populations of China and India may present a problem, but it is through the conscious decision on how to use resources that will be important to address these problems.
Researchers and commentators will often comment that “if we follow the present course” then there will be disaster ahead. To some extent there are already problems through global warming due to the slow response. Yet, rarely throughout history has the use of a resource remained constant. Many economists remind us that over time, more efficient and innovative ways emerge, so in there lies the hope that the present course will not be maintained. While some are overly optimistic that all the world’s problems will be solved because humanity always figures out an answer, many are usually wise to be cautious, given our violent histories.
Technology investment into alternatives is therefore also important. President Bush’s State of the Union address in January 2007 called for cleaner (or at least more efficient) fuel use, implying that technology and consumption patterns have a bearing on environmental issues.
The private sector as well as public has slowly been pouring more money into this, though many argue that far more could still be done, and that these alternative energy industries have not been given the kind of boost and support that the fossil fuel industry had. Hardly a month goes by without some news item of technology companies researching more efficient and innovative energy sources, or of large companies and local governments attempting some sort of initiative to cut down on wasteful energy consumption.
Interestingly, many developing countries, including China and Brazil in particular, have been making progress towards cleaner and more efficient technologies, resulting in many countries being able to reduce their emissions to some extent, as also detailed further in this site’s climate justice and equity section. As the “common but differentiated responsibilities” principles recognize, it will clearly be in the interests of developing countries to continue do these things (and more) as they face enormous consequences from climate change if they do not.
The economic, political and technology choices thus have a more important bearing on climate change than “over population.”