Archive for: Global

Human Population as a Dynamic Factor in Environmental Degradation

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The environmental consequences of increasing human population size are dynamic and nonlinear, not passive and linear. The role of feedbacks, thresholds, and synergies in the interaction of population size and the environment are reviewed here, with examples drawn from climate change, acid deposition, land use, soil degradation, and other global and regional environmental issues. The widely assumed notion that environmental degradation grows in proportion to population size, assuming fixed per capita consumption and fixed modes of production, is shown to be overly optimistic. In particular, feedbacks, thresholds, and synergies generally amplify risk, causing degradation to grow disproportionally faster than growth in population size.

Year: 2017

Source: Population and Environment

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    Climate Change

    Environment

    Population

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    Human Health, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services: The Intertwined Challenging Future

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    The maintenance of biodiversity and ecosystem services in critical to human health and welfare. The climate change wild card adds insecurity regarding what biotic resources may be needed for human adaptation to food supply disruptions, ecosystem alterations, shifting disease patterns, and other health threats. This document explores the effects of biodiversity on four major determinants of human health and well-being: ecosystem services, constraints of infectious disease, medicinal resources, and quality of life. It points out the strengths and shortcomings of integrated science and notes future research needs.

    Year: 2008

    Source: Island Press

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      Biodiversity

      Climate Change

      Integration

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      Guidance for Evaluating Integrated Global Development Programs

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      This comprehensive framework is a guidance document for evaluating multisector, integrated programs. It summarizes current research methodologies and approaches specific to integrated programs to better assess the nuanced nature of complex integrated models. This document includes guidance and key considerations on formative research, performance indicators, program monitoring, process evaluation, cost analyses, impact evaluation and scale-up evaluation.

      Year: 2016

      Source: FHI 360

        Integration

        Monitoring & Evaluation

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        Global Warming Policy: Is Population Left Out in the Cold?

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        Many nongovernmental organizations undertake climate- and population-related activities, and national adaptation plans for most of the least-developed countries recognize population dynamics as an important component of vulnerability to climate impacts. But despite this evidence, much of the climate community, notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the primary source of scientific information for the international climate change policy process, is largely silent about the relationship between population dynamics and risks from global warming. Though the latest IPCC report includes an assessment of technical aspects of ways in which population and climate change influence each other, the assessment does not extend to population policy as part of a wide range of potential adaptation and mitigation responses. We suggest that four misperceptions by many in the climate change community play a substantial role in neglect of this topic, and propose remedies for the IPCC as it prepares for the sixth cycle of its multiyear assessment process.

        Year: 2018

        Source: Science

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          Climate Change

          Population

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          Population, Health and Environment – An Integrated Approach to Conservation: Definition, Theory of Change, Barriers to Adoption and Recommendations

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          The purpose of this report is to present key findings from the CMP-Moore PHE Learning Initiative. In this report, we summarize the learning process, provide a working definition of PHE, present two related Theories of Change, highlight important barriers to organizational adoption of PHE, and make recommendations for future action.

          Year: 2020

          Source: Conservation Measures Partnership Learning Initiative

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            Advocacy

            Conservation

            Integration

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            Global Demographic Trends and Future Carbon Emissions

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            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. This report is a comprehensive assessment of the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide. Using an energy–economic growth model that accounts for a range of demographic dynamics, the study shows that slowing population growth could provide 16–29% of the emissions reductions suggested to be necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change. The report also finds that aging and urbanization can substantially influence emissions in particular world regions.

            Year: 2008

            Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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              Climate Change

              Population

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              Gender and Climate Change: A Closer Look at Existing Evidence

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              Perceiving a gap in the resources available to individuals and organizations concerned about the gendered experiences
 of climate change, GGCA commissioned this literature review in early 2016 in order to provide the most up-to- date assessment of the current evidence base illustrating how vulnerability to climate change and climate adaptation decisions vary by gender. This is designed to serve as a resource highlighting literature addressing a broad array of gender and climate issues affecting vulnerability and adaptation capacity. While this document contains hundreds of references, due to space limitations, it is not able to provide a comprehensive assessment of every topic covered. Readers are directed to the subject-specific references that are contained in many sections of the review, which often contain information on additional research.

              Year: 2016

              Source: Global Gender and Climate Alliance

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                Adaptation

                Advocacy

                Climate Change

                Gender

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                From Public to Planetary Health: A Manifesto

                This manifesto for transforming public health calls for a social movement to support collective public health action at all levels of society—personal, community, national, regional, global, and planetary. The aim is to respond to the threats the planet faces: threats to human health and wellbeing, threats to the sustainability of our civilisation, and threats to the natural and human-made systems that support us. The vision is for a planet that nourishes and sustains the diversity of life with which humans coexist and on which people depend.

                Year: 2014

                Source: The Lancet

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                  Advocacy

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                  Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost: Reducing Future Carbon Emissions by Investing in Family Planning

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                  The purpose of this project was to perform a cost-benefit analysis of reducing carbon emissions by non-coercively reducing population growth. The study estimates the cost-effectiveness of providing global access to basic family planning (as a major method of population growth reduction) in reducing future carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions between 2010 and 2050. This finding is compared to other means of reducing CO2 emissions.

                  The study found that for each $7 spent on basic family planning (2009 US$) CO2 emissions would be reduced by more than one tonne (meeting all unmet need between 2010 and 2050). By comparison, Project Catalyst predicts that reducing one tonne of CO2 emissions would cost at least $32 using low-carbon technologies. This study also found that meeting all unmet need would prevent the emission of at least 34 Gt of CO2 between 2010 and 2050 assuming that demand for family planning is not stimulated by family planning proposals.

                  Year: 2009

                  Source: Optimum Population Trust

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                    Climate Change

                    Family Planning

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                    Family Planning Promotes the Demographic Dividend

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                    This policy brief explores the complex relationship between population dynamics and economic development in developing countries. When populations transition from high mortality and fertility rates to longer life expectancies and smaller family sizes, this is known as the demographic dividend. The brief expains how, during this transition phase, there are potentially significant economic benefits. In addition, the authors make recommendations for policy changes to increase investments in family planning and reproductive health, girls’ education, and economic development for youth.

                    Year: 2011

                    Source: The Aspen Institute

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                      Economic Development

                      Family Planning

                      Institutionalization

                      Population

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