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The federal government’s latest State of the Environment (SOE) Report explicitly ranked population growth as having a “very high impact” on Australia’s biodiversity, outranking climate change.
The report states that “population growth contributes to all the pressures described” and that “each person added to our population increases demand on natural resources to provide food, shelter and materials for living”.
According to the SoE report, population growth threatens the environment through several direct and indirect mechanisms:
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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.