The Next 25 Years Are Critical
As the IPCC keeps pointing out, the world as a whole needs to meet targets for carbon emissions reduction by 2050, which is 25 years hence. Here, we see that with a 2% growth rate in the economy, which we can say is required to fund new inventions/innovations and the roll-out of clean technology, population control remains the variable to meet the CO2 commitments. To balance the equation in the industrialized West, we would require a staggering annual decrease in population of 3.4% each and every year! And that is for a world 2C warmer. It is difficult to imagine this being politically acceptable, let alone feasible, so, likely, carbon targets will not be met and we will enter a world of temperature increases of perhaps 3C or 4C (...or even higher!)
Table 5.2 Targets for 2C, over the period 2020-2050, to achieve CO2 emission reductions of 60-80% in Western countries and 50% in ROW countries.
Variable CO2 Population GDP/Capita Energy/GDP CO2/Energy
West -4% -3.4% 2.0% -1.9% -0.7%
ROW -2% 0.8% 1.7% -2.5% -2.0%
An alternative to population control could be the one outlined in the next table, Table 5.3. Here, the population is stable, with no further growth planned post-2020. However difficult this is to implement, it has the added complexity of holding economic growth to near zero in the West, although, as discussed above, some economic growth is necessary to underpin technology development. It is also unclear how economic growth can be held in check per se with the strong profit motive in capitalist societies.
Table 5.3 Alternative targets for 2C, over the period 2020-2050, to achieve CO2 emission reductions of 60-80% in Western countries and 50% in ROW countries.
Variable CO2 Population GDP/Capita Energy/GDP CO2/Energy
West -4% 0.0% 0% -1.9% -2.0%
ROW -2% 0.0% 2.5% -2.5% -2.0%
For the sake of argument, I also illustrate here a constant population number in the ROW, as in the West, which allows a higher economic growth of 2.5%. Once again, competition being as it is, the West is hardly likely to stand by and watch the ROW get richer while it stagnates. Table 5.3 above, is therefore best thought of as a hypothetical stable population case scenario.
1.5C Target not 2C Target
To further complicate the matter, we have so far only considered scenarios to limit temperature increase to 2C. As James Hansen, the doyen of Global Warming, feared in the late 1980s, climate sensitivity might be double that of our current thinking, and if this is the case, a target of 1C should be considered. We are now at 1.5C. By way of compromise, the Paris Accord of 2015 set a target of 2C whilst also recognising that best efforts should be made to meet a lower target of 1.5C.
A 1.5C target equates to carbon emission reductions of 95% in the West by 2050 (to all intents and purposes 'zero-carbon'), and 70% in the ROW - with the entire planet becoming anthropogenic carbon-free by mid-century. Unfortunately, unless we can decarbonize the economy by rates much higher than we have achieved in the past, then, as Table 5.4 shows, we are facing the very real possibility of requiring a population decrease of as much as 90% in the West and 50% in the ROW before 2050 (-8% in the West and -2% in the ROW).
Table 5.4 Targets for 2C, over the period 2020-2050, to achieve CO2 emission reductions to meet the new 1.5C target with 95% reductions by 2050 in the West and 70% reductions in ROW countries.
Variable CO2 Population GDP/Capita Energy/GDP CO2/Energy
West -10% -8.0% 2.0% -2.0% -2.0%
ROW -4% 2.0% 2.5% -2.5% -2.0%
The International Energy Agency (IEA) based in Paris is very much aware of the immense challenge this 1.5C option entails. In its World Energy Outlook 2016 report, for example, it wrote: "The energy sector challenge associated with a temperature goal of 1.5C is stark: it could require reaching net-zero emissions as early as 2040. For this to happen, all end-use sectors would need to be electrified at an unprecedented pace, and practically all power and heat production would need to be low-carbon. It would need rapid deployment of biomass with CCS (carbon-capture and storage) to compensate residual emissions from fossil fuel use in sectors where they are difficult to substitute. Regardless of future technology availability, it would require radical immediate reductions in CO2 emissions, using every known technological, behavioural and regulatory decarbonisation option" (World Energy Outlook, 2016, IEA Paris).
It is not all doom and gloom, however, provided you live in a country that has taken Climate Change seriously for a long time. The Western countries, which initially backed the (first) Kyoto Treaty, saw, by 2012, CO2 concentrations fall by 23% below 1990 concentrations. This, however, masks the fact that most of this was accounted for by the post-1990 USSR collapse and the offshoring of heavy industry and manufacturing to developing countries such as China. The global problem remains unsolved!
The United Kingdom
For the UK, the risks are still severe. Although early legislation in the form of The Climate Change Act (2008), which sets legally binding targets for CO2 concentration reductions via 5-year Carbon Budgets, means that by 2020 the concentrations will be approximately 40% below 1990 concentrations. This means that a further 60% is required by 2050 - although, admittedly, this will be much harder to realise. The UK has already exported much of its heavy industries to the developing world and transformed the country into a largely services sector economy. As Table 5.5 shows, however, the population would still need to decrease by 1% per annum over the 30 years (2020-2050) even as decarbonization proceeded at a high rate of 2% p.a.
Table 5.5 Targets, over the period 2020-2050, to achieve CO2 emission reductions to meet the new 1.5C target - with a 60% reduction by 2050 in the UK
Variable CO2 Population GDP/Capita Energy/GDP CO2/Energy
UK -3% -1.0% 2.0% -2.0% -2.0%
A 90% Western world population reduction (and 50% elsewhere) would necessitate a global-scale catastrophe. This may seem unacceptable today, although runaway global warming would be just as threatening, if not worse, with catastrophic species and ecosystems collapse. By then, action may also be too late. This is not to say there would not be safe havens where man would survive, but by the end of this century, this would be a desperate/untenable existence.
The United States of America
The situation in the USA is more difficult still since it has been a laggard in reducing its own CO2 emissions. As at 2014, totals were 7% higher than those of 1990 - although 7% lower than its preferred base of 2005. In recent years, CO2 emissions have also risen not fallen. To be consistent with international norms, a common base point of 1990 should be used so that by 2020 CO2 emissions would be comparable to the 1990 totals which, sadly, represents no real progress (despite all the clean technology innovation in the USA). The USA population would therefore need to fall by about 8%p.a. during the period 2020-2050 (or at least until decarbonization rates accelerated!).
Conclusion
Whichever way one examines the problem, it is important to remember the critical equation:
F = P * (G/P) * (E/G) * (F/E) = P * g * e * f
must balance. If economic growth is higher, either the population must fall or the economy must 'green' faster. If we are to save more people, either real economic growth must be lower or, again, the economy must 'green' faster. Having established that some economic growth of the 'right kind' is necessary, more people can only be kept alive by increasing our efforts to 'green' the economy.
Available measures to 'green' the economy will be explored in Chapter 8 after first considering how possible it really is to reduce the general population total.
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