In some ways, its one of the great unheralded success stories of our
time that global population appears set to cap at 9 billion around
2050, and hopefully decline from there. Conveniently, this assumption
on population growth underlies two of the main IPCC SRES scenarios (A1
and B1), where population caps at 9 billion before shrinking to around
7 billion in 2100. While further steps could be taken to hasten this
decline, they mostly involve larger socioeconomic factors (female
literacy and workforce participation in particular - see Amartya Sen's
fascinating work on the subject). Coercive population control programs
are rarely very successful, with China's one child policy standing out
as the major exception (and, frankly, a similar program would be
impossible to implement in a democracy, as "the emergency" in India so
clearly showed.
Talking about the population bomb reeks slightly of hyperbole in this
day and age. While reducing population is certainly a critical factor
in limiting GHGs, it will not be the primary factor driving emissions
in the future (that role will be reserved for technology).
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