CO2 emissions per unit of energy. CO2 emissions can be addressed by reducing any one (or more) of those four factors, provided the other factors are not growing even faster than those reductions. Not all of the factors are equally easy to affect though. That explains why to date, most countries have concentrated on reducing energy intensity (such as with home insulation to increase the efficiency of energy consumption) and reducing carbon intensity (such as with wind and solar as greener energy production methods). But the rate of progress in slowing global CO2 emissions has not been sufficient as yet to achieve agreed targets.
Population growth plays a role in environmental damage and climate change.
But addressing climate change through either reducing or reversing growth in population raises difficult moral questions that most people would prefer to avoid having to answer.
He argued that increases in food production improved human wellbeing only temporarily. The population would respond to greater wellbeing by having more children, increasing population growth and eventually over-running the food supply, leading to famine.
But his essay could not have been timed worse, coming near the beginning of the longest period of sustained global population growth in history. This was driven in part by vast improvements in agricultural productivity over time.
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