LONDON (AlertNet) - Investing in family planning and women's education may be two of the most cost effective means of curbing climate change and coping with its now inevitable effects, the United Nations Population Fund argues in a new report.
Women who are educated choose to have fewer children and are better prepared to help protect their families economically in the face of climate change pressures, according to the agency's 2009 report, "Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate."
Smaller families also reduce the burden on governments that are preparing to cope with the costs and the pressures that adapting to climate change will bring, the report says.
The most effective solutions to climate change must "empower - not victimise or overburden - those who must adapt to a new world," notes Thoraya Obaid, executive director of the agency.
She spoke with AlertNet in London on the eve of the report's launch.
AlertNet: International climate negotiators working toward a new global climate pact are extremely reluctant to discuss population issues as a means of dealing with climate change. Why is that?
Obaid: Demographics is a politically sensitive issue. We try to get the message across by talking about the need to give women voluntary choices as the right thing to do in terms of human rights.
When you talk about population, you talk about reproductive health and family planning, and that is political in its own way. The negotiators, knowing how tough the negotiations are already, don't want an added controversy.
They keep the focus on technology and targets. Technology is important but people are more important. Our patterns of consumption and production have an environmental impact. People are affected by climate change and we are the ones who will adapt to it. That message is not very clear in the negotiations.
AlertNet: The report says that if 200 million women around the world who want access to family planning were given that access, the global population could be held to around 9 million people by 2050 instead of 12 million, giving governments more breathing room to deal with the crises that climate change will bring. What stands in the way of that happening? Money? Political will?
Obaid: It's a combination of things. Population is rising in places with very fragile national governments, which means there are weak delivery systems. Investment in family planning has gone down in the past decade. Globally we need $23 billion more for family planning and reproductive and sexual health, to help bring access to services to women who want them. And poor women in many cultures are constrained by cultural practices.
One thing we've found that's cost effective and culturally effective is to bring together reproductive services - services for HIV testing, prenatal care and so on - in one place. Getting it all in one place makes it easier for women to access these services.
AlertNet: Why should governments and negotiators be focusing on population issues when it comes to climate change?
Obaid: We have right now the largest young people's generation in human history, with 1.5 billion people under the age of 24. Imagine their need for schools, health services and eventually employment. That is quite challenging for governments. Even governments that promote large families are beginning to realise it's not the quantity of people but the quality of people that matters - whether or not they're skilled, whether or not they're healthy.
Governments are starting to see it as a security issue. Climate change is a human rights issue, in that the poor who didn't cause it will pay for it. It's a development issue, in being able to meet the needs of your population. But it's also a security issue.
AlertNet: Do you see any success stories?
Obaid: There are winds of change. Uganda just had a big meeting on population, and the first lady and the government for the first time spoke out on the importance of family planning.
Bangladesh, a very Muslim country, has invested in girls' education. That has about halved the number of births per woman to 2.3, which is very low. Educated girls want smaller families, and that has led to a drop in maternal mortality and a better quality of life for families.
Bangladesh was able to do it because the government really engaged all sectors of society to advocate for it. Muhamed Yunis' microcredit effort also gets some credit. Giving women the ability to produce an income has added to their awareness of the benefits of small families.
You can also see a growing focus in national plans to deal with climate change. Right now 37 of 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action submitted by developing countries themselves mention population growth and wanting to slow that down as a way of adapting to climate change and giving them time to adapt to expected consequences.
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