Population size
I’ve chosen to share the budget out between those currently alive mainly because it is the simplest solution. It is not the fairest and it is over optimistic. It needs the understanding that our “personal” budget is to be shared globally between all of our not yet born children, globally.
How many of us are there to share between?
There are currently about 7.3 Billion people (7,300,000,000 or 7.3 x 109) on the earth and, according to the UN medium estimate, in the next 25 years that will probably rise to 9 billion people.
There are lots of problems with how many people to share the budget between.
• We could share the budget between the current population or a future number of people.
• The total number of people living between now and 2040 is not 9 billion. It is 9 billion plus lots of people who died and others who were born. • The budget is for the long term future so the end date (2040, 2050, 2100…) is arbitrary, or an unknown date at which we become net zero emissions. • The largest emitters per person are also the populations that are growing most slowly. So sharing between the current population would give high emitting – low population growth countries an advantage • Because the high emitting countries are those who need to reduce emissions most rapidly – over a timescale of 5-20 years, the population change is smaller than for low emitting countries who have longer to use up the budget. |