No, you don’t have to stop having children to save the climate

Tomorrow, Tuesday 15 November, there will be 8 billion of us on Earth. This data, estimated by the United Nations, combined with those of global warming which predicts an increase of 2.8°C by the end of the century, is already sufficient to cause hot flashes. But for Emmanuel Pont, author of Should we stop having children to save the planet?, the impact of population growth on the environment needs to be put into perspective. On an episode of the podcast Human warmthfrom Newspaper The world, the engineer claims that “fewer people on Earth would not answer any of the big climate questions”.

Population growth on Earth is set to level off

While Emmanuel Pont acknowledges that UN population growth forecasts herald “a trajectory that may cause concern”, he nonetheless presents several arguments that will ease eco-anxiety. First, “UN projections are often revised downwards,” says the engineer. He further adds that if the world’s population increases, “the birth rate and the growth rate decrease everywhere in the world.” In reality, he points out that growth mainly concerns Africa and that it is also destined to stop. But beware of hasty conclusions that rapidly transfer environmental responsibility to the countries of the South.

Rich countries are the most polluting

At the time of the energy crisis, this increase, even if stabilized, is frightening. Here too Emmanuel Pont encourages us to be more precise. “This idea that it is enough to have one less person or to have fewer people and that it would be easier, does not answer all the annoying questions”. So he asks the question, “too many for what?” (…) If we compare the countries in which this demographic growth is strong, which are generally poor countries, with the rich countries, we realize that, particularly as regards the climatic aspects, pollution is very widespread in rich countries”, explains the engineer. In summary, before deciding to stop having children, let’s first learn to consume better and consume less.

Cover image: Unsplash / Li-An Lim