The International Herald Tribune
Birth control and climate change;
In the Blogs: Green Inc.
JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
Are condoms and birth control pills more cost-effective than windmills and solar panels as tools to curb global warming?
Yes, and by a wide margin, contends Thomas Wire, a postgraduate researcher at the London School of Economics and author of a recent study asserting that family planning is nearly five times as cost-effective in mitigating global warming emissions as green energy technologies like wind and solar power.
''It's always been obvious that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions - the carbon tonnage can't shoot down, as we want, while the population keeps shooting up,'' Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust, the British environmental group that sponsored the study, said in a statement.
''The taboo on mentioning this fact has made the whole climate change debate so far somewhat unreal,'' he added.
Yet at the recent Copenhagen climate summit meeting - which failed to produce a binding resolution on curbing global warming emissions - population control was again the solution that dared not speak its name.
It is easy to see why. Population control measures like China's one-child policy and forced sterilization campaigns by various countries during the 20th century have led many to associate such efforts with racism and totalitarianism. Powerful institutions like the Roman Catholic Church continue to oppose contraception on religious grounds.
Yet while population control remains sidelined in official climate talks, the number of prominent voices calling for its recognition as an issue of concern is mounting. The United Nations Population Fund's most recent annual report explicitly linked slower population growth with reduced greenhouse-gas emissions.
In December, a group of more than 60 members of the U.S. Congress wrote to Peter R. Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, urging the administration of President Barack Obama to improve financing for family planning, in part because of climate concerns.
''Family planning and reproductive health should be part of larger strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation,'' said the letter, which was signed by several prominent Democrats.
''Slower population growth will make reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions easier to achieve,'' it continued.
Leading scientists, like Martin Rees, head of the Royal Society, Britain's academy of science, also assert that population growth must be constrained in order to confront climate change successfully.
But while fewer births would almost certainly result in less global warming emissions, some argue that population control will be less important for its impact on emissions than as an adaptation strategy for developing countries. There, growth rates are highest and the effects of climate change - from rising sea levels to increased droughts and floods - are likely to be the most severe.
Despite the obvious challenges, little research has focused on the intersection of demographics and climate change, states a recent World Health Organization study.
''The relevance of demographic trends to adaptation to climate change has meanwhile remained almost entirely unexplored by the scientific literature,'' wrote Leo Bryant, the lead researcher on the study.
