Choosing a smaller family is the most effective eco-action

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Already, we use more of our planet’s natural resources than it can renew each year (Getty)

Next week, rather specifically on 15 November, according to the United Nations, our human population will top eight billion – a billion more since 2011, double the four billion of us on Earth in 1974.

Explosive population growth over the past half-century has been a critical driver of the climate crisis, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states: “GDP per capita and population growth remained the two strongest drivers of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion in the last decade.”

Already, we use more of our planet’s natural resources than it can renew each year –1.8 planet’s worth. This is only possible because some of us take more than our fair share – our ecological footprint in the UK makes us equivalent to a nation of 10-tonne King Kongs stomping about!