Introduction
In the decades to come, the largest single threat to Earth’s biodiversity and its ecology will be none other than global climatic disruption brought about by the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses ( GHG) are human-generated stemming from over-reliance and use of fossil fuel to power the ever increasingly mechanized lifestyles. Without a doubt, human population growth is a major contributor to global warming. To manage the effects and impact of global warming, several environmental stakeholders, mostly the developed nations have come up with interventions that aim at reducing their carbon footprint through less consumption of fossil fuel and better technologies (Van der vaat, 2017). However, despite all the efforts in place, unsustainable human population growth seems to stand in the way. With more mouths to feed and people to move around human activities have adversely affected the climate. Consequently, as the world population is expected to grow and reach over 9 billion in the next half a century, great attention should be paid to how the earth is expected to withstand such an added load of greenhouse gases given its dire consequences (Monhan & Theobald, 2018). As such, the world today does need not only smaller carbon feet i.e. better technology and less consumption of fossil fuel, but also fewer feet, i.e. ways of slowing down the world's population growth rate. This paper is going to analyze the issue of climate change, and more specifically the role played by developed nations to resolve it.
Overpopulation and Climatic Change
Within the last 100 years or so, the world has seen both its temperatures and population increase significantly. Since the industrial revolution, the Earth's average global surface temperatures have increased by approximately 1.50F (0.90C) with the year 2016 ranked as the warmest year of all (Wang, Li, & Sueyohi, 2018). During the same period, the human population across the world has increased from 1.6 billion to 6.1 billion with a concurrent increase in the emission of CO2, the leading greenhouse gas. The concentration of atmospheric CO2eq has increased considerably from approximately 290 ppm (in the year 1880) to approximately 430 ppm today (Hall, 2017). As at the year 2014, greenhouse gasses within the atmosphere had increased tremendously, about 60% higher than the emissions in the year 1990. Although increased human population cannot be put as the direct cause of global warming, man's over-reliance and use of fossil fuel that subsequently emit GHS is. Indeed, there exists an intricate linkage between population, human consumption patterns and global warming that collectively impact the global environment.
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Today world’s population stands at slightly over 7.4 billion people. This translate to over 7.4 billion people that need food, shelter, to be kept warm and safe all of which requires large amounts of energy. Consequently, this huge population also generates enormous amounts of waste. These two things, high demand for energy plus production of a massive amount of waste are the major producers of greenhouse gasses that conversely bring about climate change (Hernandez et al ., 2018). To be precise, consumption of fossil fuel for heat and electricity production generates approximately 25% of the total emission of greenhouse gases. Industrial processes account for about 21% of the emissions, transportation accounts for 14% of the total GHG emission, while forestry, agriculture, and other aspects of land use account for approximately 24% of the aggregate GHG emissions (Vanderlinden et al ., 2017)). During the year 2016 fossil fuels accounted for around eighty-one percent of the world’s energy supply and this trend is likely to continue.
The impacts and effects of climate change across the globe today include rising seas that are threatening the low-lying areas, coastal populations, and ecosystems. The rising temperatures have also started to affect the ecosystem whereby plants and animals are forced to alter their habitat bringing forth life-threatening stress and diseases (Luoma, 2016). The other impact of climate change has been on agriculture where the increased temperatures adversely affect fisheries, crops, and livestock impacting food supply. Effects of climate change which include extreme weather patterns, rising sea-levels, and degraded air quality have both direct and indirect threats to human health as they affect the food people eat, the water they drink, the air we breathe, and the weather we experience.
As studies on climate change have continued to show, increased human activity as a result of overpopulation (97%) is the leading cause of warming with the consumption of fossil fuel on top of the list. The developed nations which consume the biggest share of fossil fuel are also the largest producers of CO 2 to the atmosphere. The US has the largest population (300 million) among the developed nations produces GHG at a per-capita rate that is more than twice that of Europe, five times the global average and more than 10 times the average of developing nations ( Petracou & Xepapadeas, 2017 ). This high rate of emission is driven by a devastating combination of high population and a huge ever increasing consummation level of fossil fuel. Fast-growing developing nations such as China, India, and Brazil stands to contribute at least half of global GHG by 2050. China, of late, has passed the United States to become the world's leading greenhouse gas emitter. As such, these developed and the fast-rising developing nations should take the responsibility in their participation in global warming. They should also contribute funds plus transfer of technology to the third world countries needed to help evade dangerous climate change.
Tackling the Climate Change
To mitigate the threats held by climate change; the world is required to cut down on global GHS emissions while at the same time adapt to changing world climate. As earlier stated, greenhouse gases are produced by several of human activities chief among them being burning of fossil fuel. As such, one way to minimize emissions of these GHS to the atmosphere is by switching from the use of fossil fuel to alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind and nuclear. The other mitigation strategy would be the development of new technologies that ensure higher and higher energy efficiency (Groot & Swart, 2018) . Man's daily behavior also needs to be modified in such a way that each person produces a smaller carbon footprint. The other steps which need to be taken in response to tackling climate change the need to adapt to the unavoidable climate change. In the recent past, hurricanes, floods, and droughts in different parts of the world mainly the third world countries have caused the world to focus on adaptation financing for developing nations which could support infrastructure projects to protect vulnerable areas (Sorensen et al ., 2018) . To this respect, climate negotiations have taken center stage in the discussion on how to tackle climate change. Several conventions and agreements have been signed such as the Kyoto Protocol that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
One of the most vulnerable regions to climate change that also account for a significant amount of global GHG emission is the Asia-Pacific region. To confront the challenge of addressing greenhouse gas emission together with the need to adapt to a changing climate, the UN Environment has stepped in to support the region (Tvinnereim et al ., 2017) . The UN body focuses on improving understanding and sharing of knowledge concerning the best policies and practices necessary adapt and mitigate challenges brought by climate change. It also helps the region assess technology needs for the region and facilitates technology transfer necessary for mitigation and adaptation. The UN body also helps the member states in the region integrate climate change into their national policies and plans.
The role played by the US Government
To many countries, especially the developed nations, climate negotiations have become less of meeting a fundamental challenge to mankind survival and more about safeguarding narrowly envisaged economic self-interest of nations. During these negotiations, there has always been a perceived lack of leadership especially by central players in the climate change debate such as the US, China and other big contributors of GHS to the atmosphere. This has elicited great concern to the long-term projections of the global climate change management. For instance, the US is the largest emitter of GHS at the time of Kyoto Protocol Convention in 1997, refused to sign the treaty that mandated the industrialized nations to cut down their greenhouse gas emissions. As such, the protocol could not come into force since legally it required counties representing 55% of global emission to ratify it (Betzold & Weiler, 2017) . Consequently, in 2011 Canada withdrew from the Kyoto protocol citing its domestic economic concern plus its view that the world's top emitters had refused to ratify the accord. In 2015, during the 21 st conference of parties held in Paris, all UNFCCC participants, including the US, signed the ‘Paris Agreement’ effectively replacing the Kyoto protocol (Besel et al ., 2017) . The agreement mandated parties to limit global warming ‘well below’ 2 degrees and ideally reaching below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels if possible by the year 2025.
Recently, the US government pulled out of the Paris Agreement given that the Agreement presents such a big gap that it's not feasible within the stipulated period. Under the current policies, global emission of GHS is still on the increase putting the world temperatures on the rise towards 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial level (Dang et al ., 2018) . Within the US, a developed nation that is still experiencing population growth given the high number of immigrants entering the country, cutting down on its emission to the desired level by the Paris Agreement is not feasible. Even if all countries honor the agreement, including the US, the chances of achieving its target are very minimal. Out of all this, it is clear that tackling the effects of climatic change cannot be conclusively handled by political agreements and governments alone. What is required is a concentrated effort aimed at mobilizing the private sector including the civil and religious organizations, institutions of higher learning, investors and households to help reduce the gap posed by the Paris Agreement.
The role played by the Nonprofit Organizations in the US
Even after the withdrawal of the US government from the Paris Agreement, many cities and states within the US have stepped up their commitments towards addressing climate change. Some of the private actors that have positively responded to US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement include the ‘We Are Still In Initiative' which is a coalition of businesses, institutions of higher learning, cities, and counties. Another group is the ‘Climate Leadership Council' a private organization made up of environmental advocacy groups, big businesses, and individuals which also is advocating for policy action on climate change. Some of the American corporations are also playing their part through methods such as i ncreasing energy efficiency and insisting on emissions reductions from suppliers. For instance, Walmart’s current joint initiative with the Environmental Defense Fund has seen the corporation cumulatively reduce supply chain emission over the last five years by over 28 million metric tons of CO 2 (Liu, Robinson, & Vedlitz, 2016) .
Although the need to limit the emission of GHG and adapt to the inevitable climatic changes seems a prudent way of mitigating the challenges of climatic change, the issue of continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources still poses a significant challenge in the fight. As such, for the world to reduce greenhouse gas emission, to the point that brings atmospheric CO 2 back from 386 parts per million, reducing first-world consumption of fossil fuel and long-term population reduction to ecologically sustainable levels is required. This is the only way in which the world can comfortably tackle the challenge of global warming and at the same time move us to toward a healthier, more stable, post-fossil fuel, post-growth addicted society.
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