Our Changing Demographic and its Effect on The Environment

By: Iain Storosko

The human population has been one to show extraordinary development and growth in both social economic expansion and in terms of demographic and urban development. Such growth has increased exponentially over the course of the last century which begins to raise a troubling question amongst the environmental scientific community: What is the nature of the effect that a changing demographic and population size has on carbon emissions and what will this have on the environment in the near future? The effects of a growing and developing population on the environment is a very important area of study because, in most cases, these are effects and contributing factors that we have the power to control. By learning patterns and trends to the global population and how this effects or carbon emissions output, we can make serious, conscious efforts to alleviating our negative impact on the global environment.

A research group lead by Brian C. O’Neill working out of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) set out to find answers to this particular problem in question. They have developed a model of analysis which looks at three potentially major contributors to the global production of carbon emission pollution. The areas being analyzed are as follow; urbanization and increasing development in both industrialized and developing countries, the degree of aging and the average age of the populations being analyzed, and any changes in household size and composition. Where early analysis considered population size and total numbers of households, this not accounting for important relationships between population and economic and technological factors, here the researchers are assessing global implications of demographic change by developing a set of economic growth, energy use, and emissions scenarios using an energy–economic growth model (O’Neill et al 2010).

The methods used in their analysis were set up to best capture future trends in the demographic of the given populations by distinguishing between household ages, being the age of the house head, size of household, and whether the residence is rural or urban in location. The data being analyzed covers 34 countries and accounts for 61% of the global population. The survey model used looked at information on income and expenditures, details not previously looked at in determining carbon emissions (O’Neill et al. 2010). Expenditures will have an effect on the emissions either through the nature of the consumption or indirectly through the effect it will have on economic growth; economic growth having not been exclusively accounted for in this type of study. Though different goods will have a different emission rate through consumption, the indirect effects, economic growth, of expenditure can be affected on variables being analyzed. Population growth will heavily impact economic growth as well as factors effecting the work force such as age being that people retire from the work force at a certain age) and urbanization on the productivity of the labour force.

In order for the research team to test the effects of demographic change in alternative scenarios, they developed two different baseline scenarios in which they ran their model; one with high population growth and one with medium population growth. Both scenarios involved future projections from both the team’s personal data and the United Nation’s projections for population growth. Modifications were also made to each scenario to account for the effect technology will have on work productivity and energy outputs.

The results that the research team came to show very useful information on the effects that a changing demographic are having on the environment through carbon emissions. In particular changes in population composition had a significant effect of emissions over any changes in population size. Aging will reduce emissions up to 20% due to the lower labour supply and consequentially slower economic growth; this trend is unsurprisingly seen dominantly in industrialized areas. Contrasting this effect, in developing countries urbanization can increase emissions by up to 25%, however, certain situations showed that urban living proved to be more energy efficient. Results comparing the high population growth scenario and medium population growth scenario were similar percentage wise though substantially different in the amount of emissions. The high growth scenario accounting for an additional 4 billion tons of carbon per year ( O’Neill et al. 2010).

Though these results can be used as a window into exactly how we as a global community are effecting the environment through carbon emissions, it does not go without the application of this knowledge to solving the problem at hand. It is up to each and every one of use to make conscious decisions to improve the amount of carbon produced in our society. If we all contribute to reducing our impact we may be able to change these numbers and write new statistics for future generations.

Brian C. O'Neill, Michael Dalton, Regina Fuchs, Leiwen Jiang, Shonali Pachauri, and Katarina Zigova. 2010. Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions.