Round The World

New Delhi, 7 July 2009

Climate Change & Population

US MUST LOOK INWARDS FIRST

By Dr Narottam Gaan

The apocalyptic predictions by the scientific community of climate change and its cascading impact on the very way of life, civilization and survival of living beings on the earth are no longer to be tucked away into the folds of political inaction, decisional maze and human indifference or cynically to be trounced.

Rep. Paul Brown on behalf of a wilful minority voice of America said recently in the debate over Waxman-Markey climate change bill in the House of Representatives that climate change is nothing but a hoax or crazy conspiracy theory perpetrated out of the wiles of the scientific community.

The utter irresponsibility and immorality of this miniscule minority’s climate change denial remains impervious to the appalling turn taken by the latest researches on climate change. The fact remains that the changes wrought to the planet are faster than even what pessimists expected. This is despite the passage of Kyoto Protocol requiring the Annex-1 advanced countries to reduce their emissions by 5 per cent below 1990 level by 2005, but their emissions continue to soar by 17 per cent since the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The acknowledgement of equity and the common but differential responsibility in UNFCCC could not be translated in practice as part of national and international policy.

American torpedoing of Kyoto Protocol and attempts to shift the burden of cuts in emissions on to developing countries like China, India on grounds of their rising economy, burgeoning population growth and unmet demands for energy contrary to the Kyoto principle of ‘differentiated responsibility’, exacerbated the crisis. This American approach is emblematic of its proclivity to legitimize the developed countries more particularly its historic usurpation of the global atmospheric commons in which their share of accumulated emissions from the very beginning of industrial revolution remains at more than 75 per cent.

The tepidity shown by the developed countries to the urgency of concretizing the principle of ‘differentiated responsibility’ not only worsened the situation but has resulted in the global greenhouse gas emissions rising faster than expected. Colossal disruptions in our economy and way of life are soon going to be a fait accompli by the ever-rising temperatures on a scale not previously presaged.

In the post cold war period demographics and environmental factors have catapulted to the centre stage of global policy-making adding new dimensions to security discourses. Climate change has finally grabbed the attention of the US public and policy makers, yet the role of the population has been all but overlooked until very recently. In all international foras on climate change, the US is seen putting emphasis on population growth in developing countries as a scapegoat to skirt out its own historic responsibility to slash its emissions. Today, a plethora of research seems to be evincing far greater interest in the relationship between global population growth and climate change.

Both in the US and globally there has been an increase in population over the past decades. Though uncertainty looms over the precise impacts of population size and dynamics on climate change, the connection between the two is far from unequivocal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) future scenarios vary greatly depending on a number of factors including population dynamics. For example, if high consumption and emissions continue, the world will likely face significant climate change, even if population grows at a smaller rate. Alternatively, significant technological advances, such as renewable energy development could coincide with rapid population growth to produce a relatively healthy climate.

While consumption is clearly the primary driver of environmental degradation, including climate change, it appears evident that population growth is also a contributing factor. But it must first be recognized that unlike climate change, population growth is not a consistently global phenomenon. It is a fact, that all of the world’s future population growth is expected to take place in developing countries, which currently produce the least amount of greenhouse gases but whose contribution is expected to increase as their economics develop.

It is ethically untenable to ask these countries to slow their economic development for the sake of improving global climate. Not to take note of the difference between the luxury emission of developed countries and the survival emission of developing nations is like punishing the innocent for the sins committed by the culprits. In a similar vein is it not morally unsustainable to ask them to slow their population rise to attend the same end?

Nowhere this contradiction is more apparent than in the US, which has always been putting a premium on capping the size of population growth in the developing world. The US constitutes four per cent of the world’s population, but produces 21 per cent of its greenhouse gases (Energy Information Association, 2007). Cumulatively, the people of the US have been the world’s greatest emitter of the greenhouse gases for the past decade, and will continue to contribute one of the world’s largest shares, unless the inordinate consumption pattern changes radically.

While alarming concerns are raised about the deleterious effects of the growth of population in China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh on environment and on climate, US population which marked a rise of some 50 per cent over the past 50 years, and is expected to increase by another 140 million by the year 2050, finds hardly any mention. While this is far fewer people than India expects to add, it is roughly the same as Nigeria’s projected increase, slightly more than Pakistan’s and more than twice as many new people as in Bangladesh or Indonesia ( Population Reference Bureau,2008).

In 2005, the average US citizen was found responsible for an estimated 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide – some 20-30 times the emissions of the average Indian, Nigerian or Guatemalan and 73 times than that of the average Bangladeshi ( EIA,2007). It is therefore inappropriate of the US to call upon countries like Nigeria or Bangladesh to reduce their fertility rates for environmental purposes without first mentioning the growth of their own population, whose impact on the environment is far more significant.

Thus, population growth is beginning to wind its way onto the climate change table. To make negotiations on climate change more credible and well-grounded two premises need proper attention: First, the impact that slowing global population growth will have on climate change should not be overstated while acknowledging that it would likely play only a limited role. The most significant solution lies in addressing the established pattern of development that has been promoting the unsustainable pattern of production and consumption-- the main drivers of climate change.

Second, it is indubitably affirmed that population growth is not a uniformly global phenomenon, particularly in regard to climate change. Significantly, as predicted, future population growth in the US will have a hugely disproportionate impact on greenhouse gas emissions compared to the rest of the world. To be compatible and exemplary in its commitment to reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases, the US, which harps on slower population growth in developing world, must address the challenge of its own growth.  Words and deeds must coincide before hammering out a credible change. --INFA

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