Population and Climate Change

Global climate change is altering the world’s environment profoundly and threatening the Earth’s vital natural resources including land, oceans and air. These changes threaten the livelihoods, health and well-being of human communities around the world.. Since the issues surrounding climate change issue continue to evolve, there is a pressing need for more research, discussion and testing of the potential for PHE approaches to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation activities, in both coastal and terrestrial environments. Documents in this section address the links and relationships between population, health and climate change.

Improving Access to Family Planning Can Promote Food Security in a Changing Climate

2012 | MEASURE Evaluation PRH | 4

A growing body of evidence indicates that climate change is decreasing the productivity of many crops around the world, thus exacerbating existing food security challenges. Ensuring sufficient food for a growing world population in the context of climate change will require innovative technologies and strategies to boost agricultural yields and improve access to nutritious foods for the world’s poorest people.

2012 | MEASURE Evaluation PRH | 38

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Why Population Matters

2011 | Population Action International | 68

This publication shows how family planning and natural resource conservation improve economic development, public health and environmental sustainability. The report includes a glossary of population terms and explains how population dynamics relate to a variety of complex development issues, such as poverty reduction, food security, environmental security, climate change and migration and urbanization.

Population Action International

Document at PAI

Although integrated assessment models (IAM) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consider population, along with economic growth and technological change, as one of the root causes of greenhouse gas emissions, how population dynamics affect climate change is still under debate. While policy debates around climate change engender lively discussion on a number of factors, population is rarely mentioned. Studies in the past decade have added significantly to understanding the mechanisms and complexity of population and climate interactions.

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Mapping Population and Climate Change

2011 | Population Action International

Population Action International’s mapping website shows how climate change and population dynamics will change the world over time. New features on the site include country profiles which contain maps, graphs, videos, and additional resources that offer a closer look at population, gender, and climate change trends in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, and Peru.

2011 | Global Leaders Council on Reproductive Health | 8

This policy brief looks at the relationships between increasing world population and the ever-growing need for food and water resources and ecosystem health in the context of climate change. In order to acheive sustainable development and meet human needs today and tomorrow, the brief promotes universal access to family plannng and reproductive health services and women's empowerment initiatives.

2011 | Global Health Leaders Council for Reproductive Health | 7

This policy brief examines the complex challenges of reducing poverty, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and coping with a changing climate. Although rapid population growth makes it more difficult for poor countires to cope with a changing climate, the brief argues that investments in family planning and reproductive health and empowering women can help address these issues. The bottom line is that family planning is a win-win for women and the planet.

2010 | BALANCED Project | 23

BalancedNewsletterIissue2.pdf

The Fall 2010 issue of the BALANCED Newsletter examines the links between PHE approaches and climate change mitigation and adaptation, because of the increasing global and national attention on the growing threat of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the impacts of climate change on communities, and interventions to address these impacts.

2010 | The University of California at Berkeley

Beahrs ELP (English)

This newsletter is put out by the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) for Alumni of the University of California at Berkeley. This issue discusses strategies for managing and mitigating climate change affects. Attention is focused mainly on parts of Asia, including Mongolia, Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, and in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. The interactive newsletter has links to full articles.

2010 | Interdisciplinary Environmental Review | 14

Inderscience Publishers (English)

This paper reviews extant evidence and offers a conceptual framework for the investigation of complex dynamics among human population growth, environmental degradation, poverty and climate change. Poverty is discussed in detail as both a contributing factor to and consequence of population growth and environmental change.

2010 | Interdisciplinary Environmental Review | pp.112–126

This paper reviews extant evidence and offers a conceptual framework for the investigation of complex dynamics among human population growth, environmental degradation, poverty, and climate change.

2010 | Center for Global Development

English

Female education and family planning are both critical for sustainable development, and they merit expanded support without any appeal to global climate considerations. However, even relatively optimistic projections suggest that family planning and female education will suffer from financing deficits that will leave millions of women unserved in the coming decades. Since both activities affect fertility, population growth, and carbon emissions, they may also provide sufficient climate-related benefits to warrant additional financing from resources devoted to carbon emissions abatement.

2010 | Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health | 8

This policy brief calls for the global community to explore all available opportunities to reduce global warming pollution and create more sustainable societies by focusing on a wider range of development solutions. Building on recent studies exploring the relationships between reducing popualtion growth and decreasing greenhouse gas emmissions, the brief calls for increasing investments in reaching remote communities with family planniing and reproductive health services and investing in women.

2010 | Futures Group | 62

English

This paper estimates the family planning implications of the United Nations (UN) projections of world population growth and compares them with a family planning policy scenario. The paper looks at the impact of population growth on satisfying observe levels of "unmet need" for family planning in the developing world and the US and estimates the costs of providing the levels of family planning indicated in each scenario. These population projection scenarios could be used in the analysis of how population growth contributes to global climate change.

2009 | Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University

CIESIN

Climate change has been affecting people differently in various parts of the world, but those most vulnerable are the populations of developing countries. The breakdown of ecosystem-dependent livelihoods is the premier driver of long term migration, as people seek out “greener pastures” or just a chance of survival. As people migrate, environmental issues can be compounded in the new areas of settlements, leading to more migration. This climate related migration is best addressed if viewed as a global process rather than local crisis.

2009 | United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA] | pp. 104

UNFPA_GenderPopClimate.pdf

Sometimes when climate change is discussed certain aspects are overlooked, such as how can individual behavior undermine or contribute to the global effort to address climate change? And how will climate change affect individuals including men, women, and the poor? A Copenhagen agreement that helps people to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adapt to climate change by harnessing the insight and creativity of women and men would launch a genuinely effective long-term global strategy to deal with climate change.

2008 | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars | pp. 8

PopulationClimateChange.pdf

Document hosted at Woodrow Wilson Center

Today the interest in the relationship between global population growth and climate change is growing. Many population experts see the world’s focus on climate change as an opportunity to make population relevant again, but we must think very carefully before developing arguments linking global population growth and climate change. This document aims to carefully frame the connections between population and climate change in their full context so we can move forward in an ethical and helpful manner.

2008 | Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars | pp. 7

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Climate change is predicted to alter various aspects of human life, but we do not know the extent of geographical distribution of these changes, nor can we know how climate-related environmental change may influence human societies and political systems. Climate change may bring about more severe and more abrupt forms of environmental change than we have experienced in the past. The more dire predictions warn that climate change may greatly increase the risk of violent conflict over increasingly scarce resources, such as freshwater and arable land.

2008 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

English

Substantial changes in population size, age structure, and urbanization are expected in many parts of the world this century. Although such changes can affect energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, emissions scenario analyses have either left them out or treated them in a fragmentary or overly simplified manner. The report authors carried out a comprehensive assessment of the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide.

Population Action International

The effects of global climate change are being felt disproportionately in the world’s poorest countries, where the people are the least able to cope. As climate change adaption strategies are gaining international attention, it is important to show how people are coping with the effects of climate change, how they could become more resilient to these effects and how people and communities can adapt to changes in climate.

Population Action International

PAI (English)

In response to climate change impacts being felt worldwide, the international community has developed mechanisms to address adaptation and what developed countries can do to plan and act appropriately. PAI’s Population and Climate Change Program produced this working paper which reviews 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) for Climate Change submitted by least developed countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as of May 2009. The review found that 37 of the NAPAs link high and rapid population growth to climate change.

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