An expert group has come up with a way of connecting family planning with climate action, without blaming large families in developing countries for a problem fed by smaller but higher-consuming families in industrialized countries.
“Achieving universal access to family planning throughout the world would result in fewer unintended pregnancies, improve the health and well-being of women and their families, and slow population growth—all benefits to climate-compatible development,” the group concluded, in a statement released late last year by the Population Reference Bureau and the Worldwatch Institute.
“We recommend including improved access to family planning among the comprehensive and synergistic efforts to achieve development compatible with addressing climate change.”
“This important linkage is not about blaming anyone, no matter how many children they have, for climate change,” Engelman and Ochs write. “Over hours of lively discussion, the experts instead settled on a small number of ‘action opportunities’. These included raising public and policymaker support for more generous financing for directly addressing climate change, and for expanding access to family planning.”
