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Population, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and US-Europe Negotiations

Have international negotiations on climate change failed to adequately address the role of population growth in they structure of international policies?

Consider that the Kyoto Protocol is currently being negotiated on the basis of individual countries contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions based on a 1990 reference point. But this approach biases the Protocol in favor of countries with low population growth rates, as population growth is a significant factor in growing greenhouse gas emissions. Consider these facts:

According to the Population Reference Bureau from 2004 to 2025 the United States is expected to increase in population from 294 million to 349 million (1990 = 249 million). Over this same period, Europe is expected to decrease in population from 728 million to 722 million (1990 = 722 million).

What this means is that assuming that European greenhouse gas emissions remain constant on a per capita basis, then Europe need only follow business-as-usual to equal its 1990 emissions in 2025, as its population is expected to decrease back to 1990 levels. By contrast, the United States is projected to see a 40% increase in its population between 1990 and 2025. This means that for the U.S. to revert back to its 1990 level of emissions it would need to see about a 30% decrease in its per capita emissions.

Based on expected population trends, any treaty based on the total greenhouse gas emissions of countries will strongly favor Europe over the United States. Perhaps this helps to explain not only why U.S. policy makers have not signed on to Kyoto, but also why it has been so easily embraced by European policy makers.

(On per capita emissions see this post.)