Population Is a Critical Factor for Global Carbon Dioxide Increase

抄録

Based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report at 2007, it is likely that there has been a substantial anthropogenic contribution to global warming. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a major anthropogenic greenhouse gas and its increase is thought to give rise to the recent global warming. Although studies suggested the impact of population growth on carbon dioxide increase, much attention has not been paid. In this study population was plotted as compared to the atmospheric CO₂ concentration. A quite linear relationship was observed between population and CO₂ concentration at both before and after 1970, after which the global temperature rapidly increased. In addition, direct and indirect human-derived CO₂ emission appeared to contribute much to the total amount of CO₂ emission in developing countries and as the economy grow fossil-fuel-derived CO₂ emission increased more as compared to human-derived emission. These findings indicate that population growth especially in developing countries is a critical factor for manipulation of global CO₂ increase.