From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Dangerous distraction or elephant in the room? The role of population growth   
   during three decades of increasing carbon emissions   
   How often have you heard some version of this claim: “population growth is   
   not a problem for climate change, because populations are growing in poor   
   countries whose contributions to global emissions are negligible”? It gets   
   repeated like a mantra,    
   soothing words that banish thought. But what justifies a claim is not the   
   number of times it is repeated, but the evidence supporting it. In a new   
   study, we analyzed carbon emissions and demographic data from the past three   
   decades and found evidence for    
   a very different claim.   
   by Lucia Tamburino and Philip Cafaro, March 21, 2023   
      
   A dominant narrative in climate change debates asserts that addressing   
   population growth is not relevant for climate mitigation. Population is only   
   growing in the poorest countries, whose contributions to global carbon   
   emissions are negligible, while the    
   largest contributions come from rich countries, where the population no longer   
   grows (or so they claim). Talking about population growth would hence be a   
   dangerous distraction from the “real cause” of climate change:   
   over-consumption in rich    
   countries. It is inferred that addressing excessive consumption among the rich   
   would be sufficient to deal successfully with climate change.   
      
   An underlying assumption of this narrative is that the world can be divided   
   neatly into rich and poor. Although common, this view is obsolete and does not   
   reflect today’s reality. As figure 1 shows, when we look at per capita   
   income, the world’s    
   countries form a continuum. Most are neither very poor nor very rich, but   
   somewhere in between.   
      
   Figure 1. Life expectancy graphed against income for the world’s countries,   
   2018. Circles are proportional to population size. Source: Gapminder.   
      
   A common and useful categorization among economic analysts is the World   
   Bank’s division of countries into four income groups: high-income,   
   upper-middle income, lower-middle income, and low income. As you can see in   
   Figure 2, the high-income group    
   includes not just Western but also Arab nations (some of which are the   
   richest), Japan, South Korea and several other countries in Asia and Latin   
   America. The upper-middle group includes not only China but also Russia,   
   Mexico and most countries in Latin    
   America, and several countries in Europe and Africa. Africa is usually   
   perceived as a poor continent, but it is actually quite varied, with the   
   majority of the world’s low-income countries, but also many countries in the   
   two middle groups, as well as a    
   few small countries in the high-income group (e.g., Seychelles).   
      
   Figure 2. World countries according to the World Bank’s division into four   
   income-based groups as of 2019: low-income (<1035 current US$ average   
   GNI/capita), lower-middle-income (US$ 1036–4045), higher-middle-income (US$   
   4046–12,535) and high-   
   income (>US$ 12,535). Source: Tamburino, Cafaro and Bravo, An Analysis of   
   Three Decades of Increasing Carbon Emissions.   
      
   So, with a more detailed and up-to-date picture of national income and wealth,   
   how does the common hypothesis about population’s unimportance to carbon   
   emissions hold up? Poorly, it turns out, as we report in a recent study in the   
   journal    
   Sustainability, “An Analysis of Three Decades of Increasing Carbon   
   Emissions: The Weight of the P Factor.”   
      
   The evidence   
   ================   
   Looking at emissions data, it is true that the low-income group’s   
   contribution to global carbon emissions* is negligible: only 0.6% every year   
   (average over the last three decades; see Table 1). But population isn’t   
   growing only in the poorest    
   countries. It is also growing rapidly in the two middle groups, with the large   
   majority of global population (76%). The argument that “population growth in   
   poor countries is not worrisome, because poor people do not impact carbon   
   emissions    
   significantly,” does not apply to these middle countries: their carbon   
   emissions are significant! Indeed, the upper-middle group currently emits the   
   most carbon of any group: 51% of the global total. Together, the two middle   
   groups contribute more than    
   64% of global carbon emissions, almost two-thirds of the total. Moreover, the   
   two middle groups are also the groups that currently are increasing their   
   emissions the most, both total and per capita. The upper middle group is   
   indeed the major contributor    
   to global emission increases (see Table 2).   
      
   Table 1. Carbon emissions in 2019 by national income group. Source: Tamburino,   
   Cafaro and Bravo, An Analysis of Three Decades of Increasing Carbon Emissions.   
   *Note: data refer to EN.ATM.CO2E.KT, World Bank code for carbon dioxide   
   emissions from the    
   burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement. They include carbon   
   dioxide produced during consumption of solid, liquid, and gas fuels and gas   
   flaring. They do not include carbon emissions due to land use change.   
      
   Population is also growing in the high-income group, despite the existence of   
   a few wealthy countries where population is stable or slightly declining, such   
   as Japan. Causes of growth around the world are different: in some cases a mix   
   of demographic    
   momentum (many young people, expected to produce children) and immigration, in   
   other cases a combination of demographic momentum and high fertility. In   
   contrast to the common cliché that only poor people have lots of children,   
   fertility is above the    
   replacement rate not only in the low-income group but also in the majority of   
   lower-middle countries and in around one half of the countries in the   
   upper-middle group. Notably, all African countries in the upper-middle group   
   have high fertility,    
   including three countries with fertility rates >3 and one with a fertility   
   rate >4 children per woman. Surprisingly, there are also some rich countries   
   with fertility above the replacement rate: Kuwait, Israel, Oman, Panama, and   
   Saudi Arabia.   
      
   Regardless of the causes, population is still growing in all four income   
   groups, albeit at different rates. During our study period (1992-2019),   
   population increases ranged from 18.5% in the high-income group to 110.2% in   
   the low-income group.   
      
      
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