Mathematical modeling of mitigation of carbon dioxide emissions by controlling the population pressure

The anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from the burning of fossil fuels is the prime cause behind the menace of global warming. Over the past few decades, fossil fuel consumption has increased drastically to fulfill the energy demand of the growing population and economy. The population pressure has not only contributed to the increase in fossil fuel consumption but also accelerated the deforestation for industrial, agricultural, and infrastructure expansion. This paper presents a nonlinear mathematical model to study the effect of an increase in fossil fuel use and deforestation due to population pressure on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Further, the effect of economic efforts applied to reduce the population pressure over the control of atmospheric CO2 levels is explored. The model analysis shows that an increase in the fossil fuel consumption rate causes an increase in the equilibrium level of carbon dioxide. Further, it is found that an increase in the deforestation rate coefficient has a destabilizing effect on the stability of positive state of the system. If the deforestation rate crosses a critical threshold, the positive state of the system loses stability and the periodic solutions arise via Hopf-bifurcation. It is shown that at high deforestation rates, an increase in the implementation rate of economic efforts applied to reduce the population pressure may cause reduction in the amplitude of periodic oscillations. The periodic oscillations may disappear if the implementation rate of economic effort increased beyond a critical threshold and the concentration of carbon dioxide gets stabilized.