A key UN climate conference (COP28) is taking place in Dubai this week. One factor that is unlikely to be on the agenda is human population growth, despite a recent warning from scientists stressing the need to address population growth. The UN has also published its 'Tipping Points' report, which warns of irreversible environmental disasters, but only hints at one of the root causes, population. PM Campaigns and Media Officer Madeleine Hewitt assesses recent news. This one UN report analyzed six interconnected risk points, defined as irreversible changes where the current systems the world relies on cease to function properly, increasing the risk of catastrophic effects.

The six tipping points identified by the UN for their potential to affect millions of lives are:

• Accelerating extinctions causing ecosystem collapse.
• Depletion of groundwater threatens drought and water shortages.
• Melting of mountain glaciers.
• Space debris causing the loss of multiple satellites.
• Unbearable heat threatening human health in certain areas.
• Uninsurable futures where rising environmental risks make homes unaffordable.

Population growth drives 5 out of 6 of these tipping points, with the obvious exception of space debris, but only technical report on accelerating extinction cites human population growth as a contributing factor. Instead, what needs to be summarized here is how population growth underlies each of the UN's identified tipping points.