Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from Australian Community Media, which has journalists in every state and territory. Today's is written by ACM editorial trainee Ellie Mitchell.
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The United Nations (UN) says the globe cracked eight billion people this month.
It begs the question of if we should be trying to reverse population growth. After all, we're hurtling towards environmental collapse because of man-made climate change and more people only puts poor old Mother Earth under further strain.
Global population figures are projected to peak at about 11 billion by 2100 and decline from there.
Some groups argue Australia should be aiming to reduce its population - non-coercive family planning and limited immigration among the suggestions - to ease that pressure.
But others say focusing on population numbers to achieve sustainability goals is a distraction, and we're better off dedicating our time to solving problems around energy consumption and generation.
For regional Australia, it is expanding populations that will play a key part in transforming the nation's energy systems to 100 per cent renewables.
In 2022, 97 per cent of our clean energy is made in our sunny and windy regions and the jobs the sector will bring in over the next century will be critical to growing and maintaining local economies.
Australia just came 55th out of 59 countries in the Climate Change Performance Index announced at COP27 last week. Last year we came dead last.
Given we haven't done our bit on climate policy to date, there's also a question of the nation's social responsibility to take in increasing numbers of climate refugees from smaller countries.
Who could forget our pacific neighbour Tuvalu's foreign minister Simon Kofe addressing COP26 last year, knee deep in ocean water, highlighting urgent need for climate action from larger nations and fast rising sea levels threatening the island's survival?
Then there's the fact low-income earners within our population contribute little to overall emissions, but will be hit first and hardest by the affects of a warming climate, while a majority of emissions come from a relatively small portion at the top. It's not a problem that can solved by reducing numbers.
The question we should be asking isn't one of reduction. We're past that.
The question should be: how do we, as a nation, as a global community, cope - without leaving anyone behind?
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