As populations age, lifestyles and
consumption patterns change. Here is an interesting paper (hat tip Tim Worstall),
Population aging and future carbon emissions in the United States. The paper shows
that under reasonable assumptions (e.g. population living in elderly households
increase from 10% to 20-40% in the long term), aging effects on emissions can
be as large, or larger, than technology effects, leading to dramatic reductions
in CO2 emissions.
Abstract
Changes in the age composition of U.S. households over the next several decades
could affect energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the most important
greenhouse gas. This article incorporates population age structure into an energy–economic
growth model with multiple dynasties of heterogeneous households. The model
is used to estimate and compare effects of population aging and technical change
on baseline paths of U.S. energy use, and CO2 emissions. Results show that population
aging reduces long-term emissions, by almost 40% in a low population scenario,
and effects of aging on emissions can be as large, or larger than, effects of
technical change in some cases…
Source : http://conservationfinance.wordpress.com
