The Study of Relationship between Population Dynamics and Climate Change in China - an Ongoing Research Project

摘要

Adaptation and mitigation of climate change is receiving immense global attention. For China, the population's dynamics is both the factor and the impact receiver of the climate change. Based on the literature survey of previous studies on the global and China climate change, few effort and attention has been paid on the relationship between population dynamics and climate change. Some previous studies included the population factor, but with very primitive models only considering the total volume change of population, while overlooking the diversity within the population, e.g., quality, structure and dynamics, impact on carbon emission and climate change, and multiple effects of climate change on the population dynamic behaviors, such as how the haze could affect the birth, decease and migration of population. This study, utilizing the system dynamics, considers the climate change, population dynamics, regional sustainable development, carbon emission, capture and pricing mechanism in an integrated model, and analyzes how the climate change interact with the population volume, structure and quality. This research project is jointly funded by the P07 program of United Nations Population Fund and China's National Development and Reform Commission. This paper presents an overview of the research approach of this on-going project.