If we're serious about cutting down on fossil fuel emissions-- and I'm not sure we are-- it seems to me there are only two ways to go about it:
1. Technological innovation in clean energy.
2. Lowering the human population so that, even if our individual emissions remain the same (or even go up slightly as nations develop), our total emissions will nonetheless go down.
The IPCC tells us we need to cut greenhouse emissions 50% by 2050, a very tall order indeed. The human population of this planet has tripled in my lifetime. Ergo, if the human population had simply remained stable over this time, our greenhouse emissions would be roughly a third of what they are today. Problem solved.
We shouldn't put all our eggs in the basket of clean energy. Lowering the human population substantially should also be a primary goal.
