Climate Change Science, Policy and Programming: Where Are Population and Reproductive Health?

Abstract

Climate change is among the most pressing issues facing the world today. Its severity, causes, consequences and solutions are the subject of continued scientific scrutiny and policy discourse. Evidence overwhelmingly implicates human activity in the rise of greenhouse gas emissions that is leading to climate change (IPCC 2007). With their high past and present consumption rates, affluent populations have undoubtedly contributed most to climate change to date; however, ongoing rapid population growth in other world regions exacerbates scarcity of food and water, vulnerability to natural disasters and infectious diseases, and population displacement, which are all linked to climate change (UNFPA 2009; Jiang and Hardee 2010). Fertility rates have fallen in much of the world; yet the global population is still growing and more than half (27) of the world’s 49 least developed countries are projected to at least double their current population by 2050, according to UN population projections. If, as Cohen (2010) suggests, people are part of the problem and part of the solution, where does population, and particularly reproductive health, fit into climate science and into the climate change policy discourse? Is reproductive health being factored into programs to address climate change and if so, how, and how could it be better considered in the equation?