Anay Joshi

Relationships among population, CO2 emissions per capita, GDP, and average temperature

Started Apr. 16, 2022

Abstract or project description

The human population has rapidly increased since the beginning of the 20th century, more than tripling in size from 1900 to the present day. Along with this realization, there has been drastic changes in the climate towards the end of the 20th century leading to a peaking interest in the community on the factors relating to climate change. Our study aims to find a connection between the rapid population growth and the climate crisis using data taken from open datasets. We aim to find a relationship between countries’ population density over time, GDP, average temperature, and carbon dioxide emissions per capita to further make a prediction as to what may happen in the near future if no changes are made to address this rapid change in population. With these relationships, we can see the effect the rapid population growth has on the weather and using a line of best fit, we will be able to apply it with future years. This will allow us to estimate, using the rate the human population is increasing in each area, the predicted average temperature increase over a short period of time. Using the CO2 emissions per capita, the trend will show the effect population increase has on human behavior and the average emissions per human in each country. The goal of these predictions is so people in communities all over the world understand what the human population is naturally heading towards and also for countries with a beneficial GDP to start aiding countries that may not have such a high GDP.