7/20/22, 10:02 PM Climate Change and Population | Union of Concerned Scientists

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

SCIENCE & DEMOCRACY

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TAKE ACTION Climate Change and Population

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Published Nov 9, 2021
| Updated Jul 5, 2022
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JEREMY BEZANGER/UNSPLASH

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CLIMATE

ENERGY

TRANSPORTATION

FOOD

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7/20/22, 10:02 PM Climate Change and Population | Union of Concerned Scientists

We’re sometimes
NUCLEAR WEAPONS asked “Isn’t population growth driving
climate& change?”
SCIENCE DEMOCRACYBut that’s the wrong question—and it

can lead to dangerous answers.

ABOUT
We frequently receive questions about population growth and its
TAKE ACTION
relationship to climate change. It’s an old idea with a troubling history.
In the context
SCIENCE of solving
NETWORK the climate crisis, it's distracting at best, and
at worst, has the potential to do great harm to the climate and to
REPORTS & MULTIMEDIA
people around the world.
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Here are the facts: climate change is caused by the heat-trapping
emissions produced when we burn coal, oil, and gas, and cut down
forests. Data show that these emissions are most closely connected to
carbon-intensive production and consumption patterns,
predominantly the carbon-intensive lifestyles of the relatively wealthy,
both here in the United States and around the world. Fossil fuel
companies, utilities, and their trade groups also bear significant
responsibility: they have used their power, money and deceptive tactics
to lock in carbon-intensive infrastructure and constrain choices
individuals can make about their energy supply.

A misplaced focus on population growth as a key driver of past,

present, and future climate change conflates a rise in emissions with an
increase in people, rather than the real source of those emissions: an
increase in cars, power plants, airplanes, industries, buildings, and ×
other parts of our fossil fuel-dependent economy and lifestyles.
CLIMATE
Implicit in this faulty framing is the notion that all people contribute
ENERGY
significantly to heat-trapping emissions. In fact, data show (PDF) that
TRANSPORTATION
the richest 10 percent of the world’s population contributes 50 percent
of annual
FOOD global warming emissions.
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A supremely
NUCLEAR unjust
WEAPONS reality is that the impacts of climate change are
falling
SCIENCE disproportionately
& DEMOCRACY on the very populations that have
contributed the least to the problem in the first place.

ABOUT
This deeply flawed frame also takes the focus off urgently needed,
effective,
TAKE ACTIONreal climate solutions, including switching to low-carbon
forms of energy, ramping up energy efficiency, and enhancing the
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health of our forests and soils that nurture life and help store carbon.
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EN
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correlation between the rise in global heat-trapping emissions and
global
SEARCHpopulation has also been misinterpreted and misused to advance
discriminatory, racist, and xenophobic arguments for population
control and against immigration. This has been particularly harmful to
Black and Brown people, marginalized communities, and people who
live in poverty—and it is specifically an attack on reproductive rights
and the rights of women. “Population control” has even been used by
terrorists and white supremacists as motivation for violent acts, such
as the 2019 terrorist attacks in El Paso, TX and Christchurch, New
Zealand.

UCS’s 50-year history includes a brief period during the

1990s when we did work on population and the
environment. This includes work that we now
understand to be deeply problematic and enmeshed in
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CLIMATE
racist frames. Notably, the famous 1992 World Scientists’
ENERGY
Warning to Humanity includes references to pressures
TRANSPORTATION
from “unrestrained population growth,” and specific
FOOD

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language
NUCLEAR targeted
WEAPONS at developing countries (“Developing
nations& DEMOCRACY
SCIENCE must realize that environmental damage is one
of the gravest threats they face, and that attempts to
blunt
ABOUT it will be overwhelmed if their populations go
unchecked.”)
TAKE ACTION As we face into the future, we are building
on the best of our legacy while also being transparent
SCIENCE NETWORK
about and accountable for aspects of past work that are
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no longer accurate and, in some cases, harmful.
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ENERGY

Which countries are most responsible for

TRANSPORTATION

climate
FOOD change?
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Cumulative
NUCLEAR carbon
WEAPONS dioxide emissions are the dominant driver of
climate
SCIENCE change. These began rising during the Industrial Revolution
& DEMOCRACY
(especially after 1850)—which means richer countries like the United
States, which made an early transition to a heavily fossil fuel-based
ABOUT
economic system, have an outsized role in contributing to the climate
impacts
TAKE we see
ACTION around the world today.

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Both in terms of cumulative emissions, and current per capita
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emissions, richer countries rank high. Conversely, low- and middle-
EN ESPAÑOL
income countries have lower cumulative historical emissions and per
capita
SEARCHemissions. Even within countries, it is the relatively rich who
are most responsible for a majority of carbon emissions.

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ENERGY

TRANSPORTATION

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NUCLEAR WEAPONS

How
SCIENCE focusing
& DEMOCRACY on population causes harm

Efforts to link population growth and environmental degradation, and

ABOUT
in recent years population growth and climate change, tend to wrongly
assume
TAKE a simple
ACTION and direct relationship between human numbers and
environmental impacts such as deforestation, species loss, and
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greenhouse gas emissions. People living near areas of environmental
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degradation get blamed, even if the main drivers of those problems are
EN ESPAÑOL
consumption and production choices far away—such as when forests
get cleared for timber, or to grow livestock or cash crops, for export.
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In this misguided frame, efforts to reduce fertility rates and limit

resource consumption become paramount “solutions,” even though
they are often directed at people who already have very low, even
subsistence-level, consumption patterns. And they fail to address the
primary drivers.

Theories of overpopulation have been offered as supposedly "natural"

laws to explain resource scarcity and justify population control—a
scarcity that is, in fact, often the product of a system focused almost
exclusively on profits and not societal needs. An economic and
governance system that focuses on broader social benefits, instead of
emphasizing corporate profits and an extractive framework, would go
a long way towards addressing the root causes of scarcity.
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Arguments about overpopulation are also used to promote coercive
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population control measures and human rights abuses, including
forced sterilization
TRANSPORTATION and family-size limitations, that primarily affect
Black,
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Brown and Indigenous communities and people who live in

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poverty. Furthermore,
NUCLEAR WEAPONS anti-immigration advocates in the United States,
Europe, and
SCIENCE & elsewhere continue to use the threat of future
DEMOCRACY
consumption patterns and environmental degradation to argue for
stricter limits to legal immigration and refugee flows from the global
ABOUT
South—even as some western countries provide per-child subsidies to
expand
TAKE their
ACTION native-born populations.

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Real climate solutions
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Promoting population control as a solution to climate change does not

address the drivers of the problem. It reinforces inaccurate views that
won’t help make progress, and perpetuates often racist frames that
harm people who hold the least responsibility for climate change

Instead, we must tackle climate change in a just and equitable way by

making swift and deep cuts in our heat-trapping emissions, investing in
climate resilience, and working together with the nations of the world
to fulfil the promise of the Paris Agreement in the context of
sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, as called for
in the agreement.

The United States must clean up our power system, and sharply reduce
emissions from the transportation sector. We must increase efficiency
and electrify energy use in the buildings and industrial sectors. We
must cut heat-trapping emissions from the food and agricultural sector
and enhance the health and carbon storage capabilities of soils and
forests. Absolute, deep cuts in emissions must remain the primary

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means to limit global warming—but we’ll also need technologies and

practices that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

And we must adopt measures that lower the overall climate footprint
of our lifestyles and diets, especially for those segments of the
population who have an outsized footprint. Moving towards more
sustainable dietary patterns and food systems can help reduce heat-
trapping emissions, while improving health and reducing pollution.
Changes in how we develop and redevelop our towns and cities—
including choices about land use and investments in transit and
walkability—can help cut emissions while contributing to healthier
communities. Finally, we must eliminate the harmful influence of fossil
fuel companies on our climate and clean energy policies and hold them
accountable for their actions.

Our solutions to climate change must be inclusive and just, and we

must reject frames that implicitly or explicitly endorse racist or white
supremacist ideologies. The world depends on it.

UCS understands and appreciates that there are many groups doing
valuable work on reproductive rights and women’s rights from a justice-
centered perspective. We have great respect for that work. This webpage
is intentionally centered on the climate dimensions of the population
issue, given the focus of our work and expertise.

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