| Dismissing myths |
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| Friday, 06 November 2009 05:42 |
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Analysing changes in population and in greenhouse gas emissions for the world’s countries, Satterthwaite states that between 1980 and 2005: • Sub-Saharan Africa had 18.5% of the world’s population growth and a mere 2.4% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions. • The United States had 3.4% of the world’s population growth and 12.6% of the growth in CO2 emissions. • China had 15.3% of the world’s population growth and 44.5% of the growth in CO2 emissions. Population growth rates in China have come down very rapidly – but greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have increased very rapidly. • Low-income nations had 52.1% of the world’s population growth and 12.8% of the growth in CO2 emissions. • High-income nations had 7% of the world’s population growth and 29% of the growth in CO2 emissions. Of the 37 nations with the lowest CO2 emissions per person, all were low-income nations and most (29) were in sub-Saharan Africa; 34 had population growth rates of more than 2% a year; nine had population growth rates of more than 3% a year. Looking at the nations with the highest and lowest population growth rates for 2000-2005, apart from the three oil-producing, high-income Middle East nations – Qatar, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates – almost all nations with the highest population growth rates for that period were low-income nations with annual per capita CO2 emissions below one tonne; half had figures below 0.2 tonnes and 12 had figures below 0.1 tonnes. For the 37 nations with the slowest population growth rates (including eight with declining populations), nine were high-income nations (including Japan and most of the wealthiest European nations); 12 were upper-middle income nations (all in Latin America and Europe); 12 were lower-middle income nations (seven in Europe, all part of the former Soviet Bloc); and only two were low-income nations (Moldova and Armenia), states Satterthwaite. When considering how CO2 emissions per person change in relation to population growth, for the period 1980–2005 many of the nations with among the slowest population growth rates had among the fastest growth rates in CO2 emissions; while many of the nations with among the fastest population growth rates had among the slowest increases in CO2 emissions. Satterthwaite emphasises: “Clearly, any consideration of changes in nations’ CO2 emissions in the last few decades cannot be separated from a consideration of economic changes that include the extent (or not) of economic growth and the sectors where this growth took place, and changes in incomes and how these are distributed within the national population.” He argues that population growth can only be a significant contributor to GHG emissions if the people who make up this population growth enjoy levels of consumption that cause significant levels of GHG emissions per person (or from the production perspective live in nations with a rapid increase in GHG-generating production). “This has relevance not only today, but also in the future, in the lifetime contribution to GHG emissions of people born now. If most of the growth in the world’s population is among low-income households in low-income nations who never ‘get out of poverty’, then there is and will be little connection between population growth and GHG emissions growth,” he adds. “So it is not the growth in the number of people, but rather the growth in the number of consumers and the GHG implications of their consumption patterns that are the issue,” Satterthwaite concludes. “It is the demographic changes associated with affluence or of increasingly affluent individuals, households and societies that are the most important demographic causes of GHGs already present in the atmosphere and the most important drivers of their growth.” David Linsell
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The link between population growth and rising emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change is weak, to say the least
Eskom Power Gauge
