Archive for: Climate Change

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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Global Warming and Reproductive Health

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The largest absolute numbers of maternal deaths occur among the 40–50 million women who deliver annually without a skilled birth attendant. Most of these deaths occur in countries with a total fertility rate greater than 4. The combination of global warming and rapid population growth in the Sahel and parts of the Middle East poses a serious threat to reproductive health and food security. Poverty, lack of resources, and rapid population growth make it unlikely that most women in these countries will have access to skilled birth attendants or emergency obstetric care in the foreseeable future. Three strategies can be implemented to improve women’s health and reproductive rights in high-fertility, low-resource settings: (1) make family planning accessible and remove non-evidence-based barriers to contraception; (2) scale up community distribution of misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage and, where it is legal, for medical abortion; and (3) eliminate child marriage and invest in girls and young women, thereby reducing early childbearing.

Year: 2012

Source: International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics

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Climate Change

Family Planning

Maternal and Child Health

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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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 Resilience: From Theory to Practice

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This paper synthesizes four case studies from Uganda, Myanmar, Sudan/Chad, and Burkina Faso, documenting strategies towards building gender equality through resilience projects. The purpose is to document how gender inequalities manifest themselves in all four locations; how gender is conceptualised in theories of change (ToCs); the operationalisation of objectives to tackle gender inequalities; internal and external obstacles to the implementation of gender-sensitive activities; and drivers that help NGOs transform gender relations and build resilience. The case studies describe how disasters and climate change affect gender groups and underscore the patriarchal social norms that disproportionately restrict women and girls’ equal access to rights and resources. This paper aims to demonstrate how to draw on promising practices to make resilience projects inclusive and equitable. It also recommends areas where further research could increase understanding of resilience to climate extremes and longer-term changes, and suggests how donors and funding can best support efforts to build communities’ resilience.

Year: 2016

Source: The BRACED Project

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Adaptation

Climate Change

Gender

Natural Disasters

Project Design

Resilience

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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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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 and the Samburu: A Qualitative Study Exploring the Thoughts of Men on a Population Health and Environment Programme in Rural Kenya

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Population Health and Environment (PHE) strategies are argued to improve ecosystem and human health by addressing family size and its effects on natural resource use, food security, and reproductive health. This study investigates men’s views on a PHE family planning (FP) programme delivered among the pastoral Samburu tribe in rural northern Kenya. Three focus group discussions and nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 Samburu men. These discussions revealed support for environmentally-sensitised family planning promotion. Men highlighted their dependency on natural resources and challenges faced in providing for large families and maintaining livestock during drought. These practices were said to lead to natural resource exhaustion, environmental degradation, and wildlife dispersal, undermining key economic benefits of environmental and wildlife conservation. Relating family size to the environment is a compelling strategy to improve support for FP among Samburu men. Kenyan policy-makers should consider integrating community-based PHE strategies among underserved pastoral groups living in fragile ecosystems.

Year: 2017

Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

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Agribusiness

Climate Change

Conservation

Family Planning

Maternal and Child Health

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Emerging Threats to Human Health from Global Environmental Change: Annual Review of Environment and Resources

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Large-scale anthropogenic changes to the natural environment, including land-use change, climate change, and the deterioration of ecosystem services, are all accelerating. These changes are interacting to generate five major emerging public health threats that endanger the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of people. These threats include increasing exposure to infectious disease, water scarcity, food scarcity, natural disasters, and population displacement. Taken together, they may represent the greatest public health challenge humanity has faced. There is an urgent need to improve our understanding of the dynamics of each of these threats: the complex interplay of factors that generate them, the characteristics of populations that make them particularly vulnerable, and the identification of which populations are at greatest risk from each of these threats. Such improved understanding would be the basis for stepped-up efforts at modeling and mapping global vulnerability to each of these threats. It would also help natural resource managers and policy makers to estimate the health impacts associated with their decisions and would allow aid organizations to target their resources more effectively.

Year: 2009

Source: Annual Review of Environment and Resources

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Climate Change

Community Health

Food Security

Infectious Diseases

Natural Disasters

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Connecting Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene with Fresh Water Conservation and Climate Resilience: The Need to Facilitate Integration in Development Assistance

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Many areas that lack safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) also need to restore or protect fresh water ecosystems and enhance resilience to climate change. Integrated solutions can help end extreme poverty and ensure long-term access to basic human needs such as food, clean water, and sanitation facilities. Currently, the development sector all too often addresses WASH, climate resilience, and fresh water conservation as separate issues. Fortunately, though, awareness about the importance of integrated efforts to solve these challenges in development projects is increasing. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has publicly spoken about and financially supported some efforts to promote integrated solutions for addressing WASH, conservation, and climate. However, more can and should be done to fully facilitate integrated approaches.This Natural Resources Defense Council issue brief is focused on examples from U.S. government development aid funding, however, its recommendations are relevant for any funder or implementer, including development agencies, foundations, or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Year: 2014

Source: Natural Resources Defense Council

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Advocacy

Climate Change

Conservation

Integration

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Community Driven Vulnerability Evaluation Tool “CoDriVE-Programme Designer”: A Handbook – Incorporating Vulnerability to Climate Change into Project Design and Implementation

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The purpose of the CoDriVE-PD tool is to enable communities to articulate their experience of how they are being impacted by climatic and non-climatic forces, identify and assess their areas of vulnerability or “development deficits” and encourage them to plan for and undertake adaptive actions to build resilience and reduce vulnerability. CoDriVE-PD is community-engaging, easy-to-use, sensitive enough to capture the different types and degrees of vulnerabilities across communities and regions, and it is oriented towards adaptive action. It has been rigorously tested and validated in different social, economic and agro-ecological contexts in four different Indian states. To support easy, quick, and large-scale application of this tool, Watershed Organization Trust (WOTR) has developed a web-based software program that enables processing and analysis of key data with a view to generating a vulnerability profile as well as situation-specific adaptive actions to be undertaken.

Year: 2014

Source: Watershed Organization Trust

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Adaptation

Climate Change

Resilience

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