Mountains of reports and studies have proposed expensive technological responses to climate change. But the scientists and policymakers working to protect the planet may have overlooked one of the easiest, cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions: contraception.
While many policymakers shy away from getting population in their environment, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said, “It’s rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning.” At the Berlin forum, UNDP Administrator Helen Clark linked the goals of education, equality, and environmental sustainability in a “virtuous cycle.”
On Friday, a Lancet editorial, “Sexual and reproductive health and climate change,” argued that rapid population growth “increases the scale of vulnerability to the consequences of climate change” and that meeting the unmet need for contraception “could slow high rates of population growth, thereby reducing demographic pressure on the environment.”
Mountains of reports and studies have proposed expensive technological responses to climate change. But the scientists and policymakers working to protect the planet may have overlooked one of the easiest, cheapest ways to reduce carbon emissions: contraception.
