The world population could rise to 11 billion by 2050. This would be an immense extra strain on the planet. Even ignoring developing countries increasing their emissions per person population growth of this level would mean that CO2 emissions almost double. So to keep emissions even at current levels we need to significantly reduce the amount of CO2 per capita. While humanity seems to be able to infinitely expand its population, it has certainly been exponential up until now when looked at over the whole of human history. The resources of the planet during that time has however stayed the same. The planet therefore does not have the ability to incorporate an ever expanding population either in terms of its resources or in terms of soaking up CO2 emissions.

Technology has so far managed to allow resources to keep up with the growth of population. Back in the 18th century Malthus predicted that population could not grow much further before humanity could not feed itself, yet the world population had not yet reached a billion, now we manage with almost seven times that.

Although numbers on the issue vary wildly it is pretty universally agreed we have too many people and are beyond what would be a sustainable world population. A 1997 study put the world's sustainable population at 3.5 billion,^[1] The optimum trust put the sustainable level just under this,^[2] and other studies say that it could be under 3 billion. However all agree we are way past the sustainable point and still growing. Reducing this overpopulation would make combating climate change much more manageable.

1. ^ http://www.mnforsustain.org/erickson_d_determining_sustainable_population_levels.htm
2. ^ http://www.optimumpopulation.org/

Most population studies into sustainability are biased towards wishing to have a low population. We are surviving here at 6.7 billion and only in a few areas is it unsustainable. These areas where 6.7 billion is unsustainable are not caused by the numbers but by the practices of humans; consumption and an unwillingness to recycle enough.

It is scandalous that the issue of population is not being discussed at Copenhagen. It is seen as a taboo subject but it is a contributing factor to emissions growth.^[1] Everything has to be on the table as an option, if developed countries are to limit CO2 emissions should the developing world not have to reduce their population growth as their bargaining chip in the process?

1. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6716294/Copenhagen-climate-summit-issues-population-growth.html

It is right that population should be left off the agenda at the Copenhagen conference because population has to be an issue for individual states. Having population as an issue at the conference itself would simply be a way for rich nations to divert attention from their own unwillingness to reduce emissions because they are not the ones with expanding populations, though it is the developed world's populations who are unsustainable in terms of the resources they use.

There are plenty of states that have family planning policies, of which China is the most well known, but there are others.

People should be free to run their lives how they wish. Our family life is not something the state or some supra-national conference should be allowed to interfear with. Essentially it is our right to decide how many children we have, states should not be able to take that away from us simply because it is inconvenient for them.

It is however undeniable that the more people there are the more food is needed, there is more need for transport, more need for housing and heating. All of these things create emissions and the higher the population the more is needed, the two are not totally tied together but they are linked.

The reduction of emissions does not depend on the control of the population growth. The production of CO2 can go up while the population is static if income is going up so the population consumes more. On the other hand if we reduce consumption, do more recycling, find greener technologies then emissions can go down while the population rises. It is precisely because this link is so illdefined that the population is not being discussed.

If there are no negotiations how can we know that the Roman Catholic countries would do nothing. They are equally affected by the problem of overpopulation. Without any negotiation and debate about overpopulation there is no chance of finding innovative solutions.

Adding population as an option would also means there is another area that can be used to break deadlocks, the developed world could promise to reduce population growth in order to get a better deal from the developed world on emissions reductions or the adaptation fund.

Adding population into the negotiations would add another complicating factor. There would need to be new studies on the impact of population growth on climate change, what can be done about it, discussions on who would pay, and at the end of the day a great many nations would absolutely refuse to do anything about growing populations for religious reasons. Roman Catholic countries in particular would never agree to limiting population as this would mean birth control. A lot of time would have been wasted for no result.