Population trends are linked to climate change says report

Population Action International (PAI) - an independent US-based policy advocacy group - says it is clear that analysing changes in the composition of various populations is very important for understanding future needs and potential for mitigating carbon emissions and climate change. These population changes include age composition, the distribution of people in urban and rural areas, and household size.

The analysis presented by PAI argues that by including only population size as the demographic variable in climate models, the contribution of "population" to climate change has been underestimated.

Crowded street in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a country where fertility has fallen fast. Photo � Shehzad Noorani/Still Pictures

Summarising these findings, PAI says: "Sir Nicholas Stern (2006) states that climate change threatens to cause the greatest and widest ranging market failure ever seen. He warns that one per cent of global GDP must be invested in order to mitigate climate change, and that failure to do so could risk a recession worth up to 20 per cent of global GDP.

"Moreover, the adverse effects of climate change cannot be bound within any administrative boundaries. Climate change poses a grave challenge for the whole world and has wide ranging implications for human well-being as well as for security, including the risk of armed conflict over resources and large-scale migrations of population within nations and across national borders. The IPCC estimates that 150 million environmental refugees will exist in 2050, due mainly to the effects of coastal flooding, shoreline erosion and agricultural disruption.

Adaptation strategies

"A range of development policies are urgently needed to address this situation, including renewed commitment to meeting the globally agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Investments in family planning and reproductive health, girls education, economic opportunities and empowering of women, and in youth could help least developed and developing countries to speed up their demographic transition, enabling them to achieve demographic windows of opportunity which may contribute to economic growth and a greater capacity to cope with climate change impacts.

"Population dynamics should not continue to be ignored in climate change adaptation strategies, and effective measures must meet the needs of the world's most vulnerable citizens, including the needs of women.

"Combating climate change calls for the spirit of environmental stewardship and international cooperation on a range of emissions reduction and adaptation approaches. These approaches will benefit from greater attention to population dynamics, including growth, household structure, urbanization and aging.

"Population policies and programmes that promote universal access to voluntary contraception, when linked with broader efforts to address a range of demographic factors and meet development and poverty reduction objectives, such as the MDGs, will help lead to a more sustainable demographic future that will play a crucial role in climate change mitigation and adaptation."

The PAI working paper is the first in a three-part series that aims to build the knowledge base on the role of population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation. It can be downloaded at here

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