Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation

Abstract

Global, national and regional population projections are embedded in projections of future greenhouse gas emissions and in the anticipated impacts of climate change on food and water security. However, few studies acknowledge population growth as a variable affecting outcomes. Neither the uncertainty around population projections nor the scope for interventions to moderate growth is discussed. Instead, a deterministic approach is taken, assuming that population growth is governed by economic and educational advances.

Full text

103© Springer International Publishing AG 2018
M. Hossain et al. (eds.), Pathways to a Sustainable Economy,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-67702-6_7
Chapter 7
Synergy between Population Policy, Climate
Adaptation andMitigation
JaneN.O’Sullivan
Abstract Global, national and regional population projections are embedded in
projections of future greenhouse gas emissions and in the anticipated impacts of
climate change on food and water security. However, few studies acknowledge pop-
ulation growth as a variable affecting outcomes. Neither the uncertainty around
population projections nor the scope for interventions to moderate growth is dis-
cussed. Instead, a deterministic approach is taken, assuming that population growth
is governed by economic and educational advances.
This chapter reviews the treatment of population in climate change scenarios and
the prospects for proactive interventions to inuence outcomes. Sensitivity analyses
have demonstrated population to be a dominant determinant of emissions. The
assumption that population growth is determined by economic and educational set-
tings is not well supported in historical evidence. Indeed, economic advance has
rarely been sustained where fertility remained above three children per woman. In
contrast, population-focused voluntary family planning programmes have achieved
rapid fertility decline, even in very poor communities, and enabled more rapid eco-
nomic advance.
Policy-based projections of global population are presented, based on the histori-
cal course of nations that implemented effective voluntary family planning pro-
grammes. If remaining high-fertility nations adopted such programmes, global
population could yet peak below 9 billion. Current trends make it more likely to
exceed 13 billion people by 2100 unless regional population pressures cause cata-
strophic mortality rates from conict and famine. Global support for family plan-
ning could reduce population by 15% by 2050 and 45% by 2100 compared with the
current trend. Co-benets include gender equity, child health and nutrition, eco-
nomic advancement, environmental protection and conict avoidance.
Keywords Population growth • Greenhouse gas emissions • Shared socioeconomic
pathways • Economic development • Family planning
J.N. O’Sullivan (*)
School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, University of Queensland,
St Lucia, QLD, 4067, Australia
e-mail: j.osullivan@uq.edu.au

104
7.1 Introduction
Several recent reports stress that climate change is accelerating and that its impacts
may be more severe than earlier models suggested. Hansen etal. (2016, p.3761)
found evidence for acceleration of ice-melt and its relationship with storm intensity
and concluded that “The modelling, paleoclimate evidence, and ongoing observa-
tions together imply that 2°C global warming above the preindustrial level could be
dangerous”. Schleussner et al. (2016) demonstrated considerable difference in
impact between 1.5°C and 2°C warming, but concluded that at best we may be able
to minimise the period during which global mean temperature may temporarily
exceed 1.5°C. They highlighted the gap between current national commitments
under the Paris Agreement and the emissions reductions needed to meet that agree-
ment’s goal to limit the increase in the global average temperature “to well below
2°C above pre-industrial levels”. Schellnhuber, Rahmstorf, and Winkelmann, 2016
observed that almost no scenarios so far modelled achieve a greater than 50%
chance of remaining below 1.5°C warming. Spratt (2016) emphasised that basing
required action on a 50% probability of achieving a “safe” target does not meet any
normal standards of risk management. He argued that there is already no carbon
budget left if we are to have 90% chance of remaining under 2°C.
Such urgency emphasises that action to reduce drivers of climate change must be
taken on all effective fronts simultaneously. Focusing responses too narrowly will
mean other necessary changes are addressed too late. All avenues to reduce emis-
sions should be pursued, unless they compete directly for the same resources.
Rockström etal. (2017) suggest a “roadmap” consistent with less than 2°C warm-
ing that requires anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions to peak before 2020 and
halve each decade thereafter.
Yet there is one line of action that has so far been excluded from the discourse of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is
despite it being inexpensive, impacting climate adaptation and mitigation simulta-
neously, enhancing the impact of all other climate change responses and directly
beneting the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of humanity, particularly women
and children in the least-developed countries. This low-hanging fruit is the exten-
sion of voluntary family planning and access to birth control, to minimise further
growth in the human population.
In models of future greenhouse gas emissions, the contribution of population
growth is often buried in model assumptions and uninterrogated in their analysis.
For example, in the roadmap of Rockström etal. (2017), renewable energy roll-out
is expressed only in terms of percentage share of primary energy. The prospect of a
doubling or more in energy demand, and the attribution of this demand growth
among population growth, economic development or technology change, is thereby
avoided altogether. Such population-energy-technology (PET) analyses have found
that the sensitivity of emissions to population change is greater than that to change
in GDP per capita by a factor of more than two (Jorgenson & Clark, 2010) to almost
seven (Casey & Galor, 2017) when considering only carbon dioxide emissions from
fossil fuels and industry (FFI).
J.N. O’Sullivan

105
Given the less exible relationship between population and demand for land
resources, the common omission of emissions from agriculture, biomass use and
land use change underestimates the inuence of population on emissions. Bajželj
etal. (2014) found that greenhouse gas emissions from the food system were sensi-
tive to population outcomes by a factor of 1.9, meaning that a 10% increase in popu-
lation would result in 19% more emissions from the food system, assuming the
same wealth and dietary preferences.
Using an economic-demographic model, taking account of multiple channels of
effects of change in fertility and population on economic growth, Casey and Galor
(2017) estimated that moving from the medium to the low variant of the United
Nations (2015) global population projection could reduce FFI emissions by 10% by
2050 and 35% by 2100, despite increasing income per capita. O’Neill etal. (2010),
including emissions from the food system but using UN population estimates from
2003, estimated emissions reduction around 15% by 2050 and 35–42% by 2100.
Their careful analysis accounted for changes in urbanisation, age distribution and
household size on a country-by-country basis.
These studies applied alternative population projections as exogenous factors,
without identifying to what extent specic measures would achieve lower popula-
tion outcomes. In this analysis, historical evidence for the effect of both economic
advancement and voluntary family planning programmes on population outcomes
is examined; future projections are based on assuming the adoption of family plan-
ning programmes achieves the average outcome achieved by such programmes in
the past. It therefore more directly addresses the value of including population mea-
sures in the climate change response.
7.2 Population Assumptions inClimate Change Scenarios
Predicting future greenhouse gas emissions, and the effect of mitigation measures,
involves many assumptions about future trends in economic, social and technologi-
cal change and international relations. To help make such assumptions explicit and
consistent between modelling exercises, and to explore the likely range of out-
comes, scenario narratives are built describing alternative possible futures.
The socioeconomic scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) have formed the basis of many attempts by independent
research groups to model the impact of policy options on outcomes. The “shared
socioeconomic pathways” (SSPs) described in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report
(AR5) (IPCC, 2014) replace the previous SRES scenarios, named from the Special
Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC 2000). The SSPs are likely to remain the
dominant framework for modelling for some years. The SSPs comprise ve sce-
nario “families” (O’Neill etal., 2013). In the base case, the scenario describes a
future without policies to address climate change, setting assumptions about trends
in key drivers and the interactions between them. Against this, modellers may vary
policy, technology and other assumptions to generate mitigation scenarios.
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

106
Each of the SSPs has a different global population trajectory (van Vuuren etal.,
2014). These projections depend primarily on the assumed timing, rate and extent
of the fall in family size in remaining high-fertility countries, and to a lesser extent
assumptions about change in mortality rates, migration and family size in low-
fertility countries (i.e. thosebelow the “replacement rate”, around 2.1 children per
woman, at which children just replace their parents’ generation in the absence of
migration). However, the SSPs do not differ with respect to actions to inuence
fertility—none are included in any of the scenarios. This is because family size
outcomes are assumed to be a product of economic and educational outcomes
(Samir & Lutz, 2014).
Figure 7.1 indicates the relative challenges posed for climate change adaptation
and mitigation by each SSP baseline scenario and the approximate trends in popula-
tion and emissions per person among the SSPs (their actual population projections
are given in Fig.7.7).
Notably, all but one (the worst-case scenario, SSP3) of the SSP scenario families
anticipate a global population well below the UN’s current medium projection—
indeed, below the 95% probability range of the UN’s 2015 probabilistic projections
(UNDESA, 2015). The preferred scenario, SSP1, combines a very low global popu-
lation with low per capita footprint in a world of more integrated and equitable
governance. SSP5 combines a similarly low population path with high energy
demands per person. For these two scenarios, the population path is lower than the
UN’s “low-fertility projection”, which is not intended as a realistic scenario but as a
sensitivity analysis: it merely applies a fertility rate (the average number of children
Fig. 7.1 A conceptual map of the ve families of IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs),
in relation to the strength of mitigation and adaptation challenges posed by each scenario (after van
Vuuren etal., 2014). Approximate trends in population outcomes and emissions per capita out-
comes are superimposed. Population growth is most strongly related to adaptation challenges
J.N. O’Sullivan

107
per woman) 0.5units lower than the medium projection in all countries with imme-
diate effect. Fertility is expected to fall steadily under the UN’s medium projection,
but no faster or slower in the low and high projection after the initial adjustment of
0.5units. However, a path similar to the SSP1 and UN low projection is achievable
if fertility were reduced in remaining high-fertility countries faster and further than
assumed in the UN projections.
The population outcome has enormous impact on prospects for both mitigation
and adaptation, as Young, Mogelgaard, and Hardee (2009) also demonstrated with
respect to the earlier SRES scenarios. Riahi, van Vuuren, and Kriegler (2017)
reported that, across six independent integrated assessment models running a total
of 105 mitigation scenarios, outcomes as low as 2.6W/m2 climate forcing (consis-
tent with less than 2°C warming) were found to be infeasible when applying SSP3.
This was despite SSP3 assuming considerably less economic development than
other scenarios. SSP3 also had no feasibility of increasing forest cover, and only
SSP1 projected forest expansion as likely in the base scenario.
It is vital to note that each of the UN’s revisions in the past decade has increased
the expected population, because fertility decline is not happening as fast as its
medium scenario expects. The UN’s estimate for the year 2100 has increased by
more than two billion in just 11years (Fig.7.2). This suggests that the feasibility of
more favourable climate change outcomes is being eroded over time, as global pop-
ulation growth is exceeding the expectations of lower-emissions models.
The reason for these regular upward revisions is obvious when we look at annual
increments of global population growth (Fig.7.3). In many countries, rapid falls in
fertility were occurring from the 1970s to 1990s, which enabled the global popula-
tion increment to peak in 1988 and to decline throughout the 1990s. However, since
2000, the increment has increased again. This is the result of fertility decline slow-
ing, stalling or reversing since the withdrawal of funding and political support for
family planning programmes from the mid-1990s (Bongaarts, 2008). Countries
such as Indonesia, Algeria and Egypt, which achieved considerable fertility decline
under family planning programmes prior to the mid-1990s, have seen fertility
increase again before reaching replacement rate. This reversal occurred despite
accelerated progress on girls’ education, child mortality and poverty reduction (fac-
tors popularly claimed to drive fertility decline), as these were high priority targets
of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The dramatic fall in international
support for family planning (Fig.7.3, right-hand axis) was the factor most consis-
tent with this reversal (Sinding, 2009), providing evidence that its inuence on
population growth has been stronger than is commonly recognised. The goal of
achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive health services was belatedly
added to the MDGs in 2007, but remained the least addressed in its agenda.
Interruptions or reversals of the fertility transition, such as those in Egypt and
Indonesia, are not accommodated in the UN’s population model (O’Sullivan,
2016). The UN’s medium projection continues to expect the downward trend in
global increment to resume, based on immediate resumption of fertility decline in
all high- fertility countries, despite many of them seeing little if any decline recently.
As shown in Fig.7.3, data on actual change in global population, reported annually
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

108
by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB, 2011–2016), are greatly exceeding the
“medium” projection and instead are approximating the “constant fertility”
projection, which assumes all countries continue with the same fertility they had
in 2010. If sustained, it results in a global population of 28 billion by 2100. Of
course, such a population could not be fed—if fertility does not fall, then death
rates must rise.
Yet, despite the poor track record of recent projections, most climate impact
modellers continue to regard future population as predetermined. They do not con-
sider what measures might be available to inuence it. Most do not even acknowl-
edge the uncertainty of population projections or consider any sensitivity analysis to
see how emissions outcomes would be affected if population is higher or lower than
expected.
Marangoni etal. (2017) attempted sensitivity analyses on the main drivers of FFI
emissions in the SSP scenarios and concluded population growth was relatively
unimportant compared with economic growth and energy intensity of the economy,
although the latter two tended to offset each other. This outcome was a product of
their methodology, which contrasted outcomes to 2050in SSP2 projections when
individual drivers were substituted from SSP1 or SSP3. Hence it highlighted which-
ever factors varied most in the short term between these three SSP scenarios, due to
the arbitrary assumptions underlying those scenarios. They failed to acknowledge
Fig. 7.2 Population projections from the United Nations, showing the dramatic rise in expected
outcomes since 2004. (Data sources: UNDESA, 2004, 2011, 2015)
J.N. O’Sullivan

109
that energy intensity of the economy and growth in GDP per capita are not indepen-
dent factors but tend to offset each other—increasingly so as energy constraints
intensify in the future. In most cases, if a higher assumption is imposed about future
economic growth, a lower energy intensity is required to achieve it, so that the net
effect is predictably smaller than the individual effects. The effect of population was
further understated by omitting land use emissions and biomass sequestration.
In contrast, sensitivity analyses based on historical data have found population
growth to be a stronger driver of emissions than economic growth. The studies of
Jorgenson and Clark (2010), Casey and Galor (2017), O’Neill etal. (2010) and
Bajželj etal. (2014) have already been mentioned. Alexander etal. (2015) found
that population growth has been the largest driver of land use change, although
dietary changes in emerging economies are an increasingly important contributor.
The World Resources Institute’s exemplary series Creating a Sustainable Food
Future found that achieving replacement level fertility in sub-Saharan Africa by
2050 would spare an area of forest and savannah larger than Germany from conver-
sion to cropland, and in doing so save 16 Gt of carbon dioxide emissions (Searchinger
etal., 2013). The RoSE project, a major international effort to model energy and
Fig. 7.3 The annual increment of global population 1990–2010, and that projected under the UN’s
medium fertility and constant fertility projections (UNDESA, 2013). Black circles give estimates
of actual increment reported annually in the Population Reference Bureau’s “World Population
Datasheets” (PRB, 2011–2016).International aid spending on family planning is plotted against
the right axis. (Data source: UN Economic and Social Council, 2010)
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

110
emissions pathways, discovered that a higher-than-expected population had a far
greater impact on deforestation and land use-related emissions than high economic
growth (Kriegler, Mouratiadou, Luderer, etal., 2013).
As illustrated in analyses such as those by O’Neill etal. (2010) and Casey and
Galor (2017), the impact of a modelled change in demographic drivers is relatively
small until mid-century, but expands greatly in the second half of this century. The
slow divergence of population outcomes after policy change (“demographic
momentum”) is often used to argue that population measures should have lower
priority compared with energy sector interventions. It should instead be a reason for
even greater urgency, to ensure that the substantial gains are not further deferred,
and that a higher peak population does not render safe climate scenarios infeasible.
Neglect of population policy over the past two decades has likely added more than
two billion people to the global peak population (Fig.7.2). The low priority afforded
to population measures implies that they would compete with other mitigation or
adaptation efforts. This is a mistake, since family planning measures are usually
cost-negative, saving health and education systems far more than they cost. Hence,
they simultaneously liberate resources for other climate change and development
measures and reduce the scale of other measures required to meet humanity’s needs.
7.3 Relationship between Enrichment andFertility Decline
Lower population outcomes may be widely recognised as benecial for climate
change adaptation and mitigation, and a faster decline in fertility in developing
countries is accepted as necessary to achieve a lower population. However, there is
disagreement regarding whether direct interventions are effective and appropriate to
speed the fertility decline. The SSP scenarios assume that the low population out-
comes can be achieved as a result of indirect effects of economic development and
education, without any interventions directly aimed at lowering fertility. The his-
torical record does not provide strong evidence for this position. No country has
been able to achieve signicant enrichment while fertility and population growth
remained high, with the exception of those with large mineral resources. The latter,
including Syria and Egypt, did not see fertility falling rapidly as a result of oil
wealth, and have suffered a reversal of fortune as increasing dependence on food
imports coincides with declining oil revenue (Ahmed, 2017).
In contrast, there is abundant evidence that population-focused voluntary family
planning programmes were highly effective in causing rapid fertility decline and
subsequently accelerated economic development. Countries such as South Korea,
Thailand and Costa Rica, in which voluntary family planning was extended and
promoted even to poor, rural and remote communities, saw rapid fertility decline,
two to three times as fast as UN projections expect for remaining high-fertility
countries (Fig.7.4). They subsequently experienced broad-based economic devel-
opment, accelerating only after fertility fell below three children per woman and
population growth slowed. The timing of their fertility transition matched that of
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111
their family planning programmes, with no apparent economic or educational trig-
ger. Meanwhile, some countries whose wealth and female education levels were
above regional averages, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Nigeria, saw little
fertility decline. In several countries where family planning programmes were
neglected before reaching replacement rate, such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Algeria
and Ghana, the fertility decline stalled and in some cases reversed.
Notwithstanding that these family planning-driven fertility transitions generally
preceded economic and educational improvement, the overall correlation between
GDP per person and total fertility rate of nations has led to the common assumption
that economic development drives the fertility transition. To further investigate the
direction of causation, Fig.7.5 explores whether the level of wealth affected fertility
decline, or whether fertility affected economic development. For all countries in
each 5-year interval for which data were available, the change in fertility over
5years was plotted against the level of GDP per capita at the start of the period
Fig. 7.4 Time course of total fertility rate (TFR, births per woman) for selected countries that
implemented population-focused voluntary family planning programmes at differing times, show-
ing rapid change in fertility, compared with aggregate TFR for less developed countries (excluding
China) and least-developed countries. The horizontal dashed line approximates “replacement
level” fertility. (Data from UNDESA, 2015)
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

112
(Fig.7.5a). It was found that the rate of fertility decline was unrelated to per capita
GDP. The poorest countries could reduce fertility as rapidly as middle-income
countries if they were motivated to do so. Conversely, when the change in GDP per
capita was plotted against the total fertility rate (TFR) prevailing at the start of each
interval, it is evident that economic development has been severely hampered by
high fertility (Fig.7.5b). When fertility remains above three children per woman,
the chance of sustained economic improvement has proven to be extremely low.
While low fertility has not guaranteed enrichment in any 5-year period, over 20-year
intervals all low-fertility countries made considerable gains in wealth, including
those with shrinking populations. Fertility decline appears to be a necessary, if not
sufcient, precondition for economic development.
Figure 7.6 contrasts the experience of all countries that had high fertility in 1950,
grouped according to their maximum rate of fertility decline over any 20-year
period. Group 1 contained countries that had TFR above 5 at the start of the series
(1950–1955) and where TFR fell after a particular date, at a rate exceeding 1.5units
per decade, to near or below replacement (unless insufcient time had elapsed since
the start of decline). It was veried that each of these countries adopted voluntary
family planning measures around the time that the birth rate began to fall, although
not all maintained them until reaching replacement level fertility. Group 2 also
showed considerable decline in TFR after a given date, but at a slower rate, between
0.5 and 1.5 units per decade. Group 3 showed no distinct start date for fertility
decline and still have fertility rates above 4. Group 4 (not plotted) were considered
“post-transition” countries that had fertility rates below 5 and falling at the start of
Fig. 7.5 (a) The rate of fertility decline as a function of level of wealth and (b) rate of economic
development as a function of level of fertility. Data points represent each country in each 5-year
period between 1960 and 2010. All countries and time periods with available data are included.
Box plots span 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile and whiskers extend to the 10th and
90th percentile. GDP per capita (ination-adjusted US$2005) are from the World Bank economic
database and fertility data from UNDESA (2015)
J.N. O’Sullivan

113
the data series. Countries where either immigration or emigration contributed more
than 15% to population change were excluded. Before averaging each group’s data,
they were synchronised with respect to the timing of their fertility transition by
designating Year 0 to be the start of the transition, or 1970 where no distinct change
in fertility path is observed (Group 3).
The sixteen countries included in Group 1 were Algeria, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Cambodia, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Iran, South Korea, Libya, Maldives, Mongolia,
Oman, Thailand, Tunisia and Viet Nam. Group 1 countries rejected due to high
migration were Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Aruba, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
Fig. 7.6 The averaged time course for (a) fertility, (b) population and (c) GDP per capita (ination-
adjusted US$), and (d) the relationship between total fertility rate (TFR) and per capita GDP, for
developing countries grouped according to the rate of their fertility transition. Each of the rapid
transition countries (Group 1) deployed successful family planning programmes. Many countries
in Group 2 had programmes that were weaker or not sustained. Group 3 countries generally did not
have widespread family planning efforts. Year 0 is the start of the fertility transition in each coun-
try, or 1970 for weak adopters (Group 3). Population and fertility data from UNDESA 2013, eco-
nomic data from World Bank economic database
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

114
(high immigration), and Mauritius and Guyana (high emigration). Note that China
is included despite the presence of coercive programmes from 1979 because most
of the fertility decline occurred under the voluntary family planning programme in
place from 1970 to 1978. Note also that the data are not population-weighted:
China’s data have no more inuence on the average than those of Bhutan or
Maldives. Group 2 contained 39 included countries and 48 high-migration coun-
tries, group 3 contained 26 included countries and 19 high-emigration countries.
Only Group 1 countries have achieved a tapering of their population growth
(Fig.7.6b). Most of these will achieve a peak population around 2–2.5 times the
population when they started addressing family planning. Group 2 countries have
lessened population growth but have not reduced family size as fast as the number
of families has increased. Hence, most are still adding more people each year than
ever before. Group 3 countries have seen their population triple in the same period.
Due to their high proportion of young people yet to start families, they have
another doubling in store if they choose to embrace family planning now (and
more if they do not).
The impact of fertility decline on wealth can be seen dramatically in Fig.7.6c.
Rapid fertility decline has been associated with dramatic economic improvement.
Slow-transition countries have seen virtually none. Figure7.6d plots the fertility
rate as a function of wealth. It contains two features that are at odds with the popular
belief that development drives fertility decline:
1. The relationship between fertility and wealth is steeply concave, as fertility fell
rst before economic development accelerated.
2. All three groups have followed the same path. Those that accelerated fertility
decline progressed more rapidly to economic development. With rare excep-
tions, “development rst” has not been an achievable option.
These results do not suggest that ending poverty does not inuence family size,
but that reducing poverty as a population control strategy simply has not proven
possible for most high-fertility countries. High population growth poses such a high
economic burden, together with ongoing crowding of limited natural resources, that
signicant reductions in poverty have been impossible to achieve. Family planning
programmes, on the other hand, have proven achievable even in the poorest settings,
and the economic benet to families has translated into societal enrichment.
7.4 How Much could Population Policy Measures Contribute
totheClimate Change Response
Although the effects of a lower population on greenhouse gas emissions have been
previously estimated (e.g. Casey & Galor, 2017; O’Neill etal., 2010), the effects of
policies and programmes intended to reduce population have not been quantied.
To address this question, population projections were compared under two scenar-
ios: “business as usual” and a proactive family planning scenario. In the latter, all
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115
countries that currently have above-replacement fertility adopt voluntary, client-
focused and culturally appropriate family planning measures, which seek to give all
women the means to avoid unwanted pregnancy and which address traditional bar-
riers to fertility regulation. It was assumed that each country would achieve the
average path of fertility decline achieved in the past by Group 1 (as depicted in
Fig.7.6a), starting from their 2010–2015 fertility rate. This is a conservative sce-
nario, as better contraceptive technologies, communications, education levels and
community engagement methods all have the potential to make future programmes
more effective than in the past. However, the projection is also quickly outdated:
each year of delay in implementing such programmes would add around 100 mil-
lion people to the achievable global peak population.
The business-as-usual scenario would see the international community continue
to direct a derisory level of funding and programme attention to family planning
(which receives less than 1% of international aid) and family planning programmes
continue to lack the scale and visibility needed to reach the majority of disadvan-
taged people and to achieve rapid fertility decline. The fertility path applied to high-
fertility countries (Group 3, Fig.7.6a) continued forward using the UN’s medium
projection. However, each country’s starting point on this path matched their current
fertility, so that countries with current fertility above 5.5 experienced a further
period of slow change before reaching the more rapid phase modelled in the UN
projection. In addition, it was assumed that very low-fertility countries (below 1.5)
were successful in boosting birth rates and achieved the UN’s high projection (while
remaining below replacement rate fertility).
Under these assumptions, a business-as-usual approach is likely to see growth
exceed the UN’s current medium projection, reaching 13 billion before the cen-
tury’s end (Fig. 7.7). It is questionable whether such a population would be
achieved, but the risk is that it will be curtailed by widespread conict and famine.
Apart from being a catastrophe in its own right, such a scenario would likely derail
climate action.
On the other hand, if the remaining high-fertility countries were to embrace vol-
untary family planning programmes, a global population path close to the UN’s
current low projection could be achieved. This would put the IPCC’s best-case,
SSP1 scenarios into the realm of possibility.
Although the proactive family planning scenario achieves a similar population
outcome to the SSP1 model and the UN low-fertility variant, it does so in a very
different and more plausible way. It is important to recognise that an avoided birth
has more impact on future population if it occurs sooner rather than later. Delayed
fertility decline allows the demographic momentum to build, so that greater fertility
decline is ultimately required to achieve the same population. The UN’s low- fertility
projection is unrealistic, because while it assumes a very modest reduction in fertil-
ity (half a child per woman) compared with the medium scenario, it applies this
reduction within the rst 5-year interval. The SSP1 model, on the other hand, relies
on future improvements in education and economic conditions to drive fertility
decline, resulting in a later and more gradual decline, but declining to an extraordi-
nary extent, settling around 1.2 children per woman across today’s developing
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

116
countries, despite developed countries remaining or rebounding to around 1.7 chil-
dren per woman (Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital,
2015). No explanation is offered for this astonishing assumption. In the proactive
family planning model offered in the current study, fertility decline is rapid over the
rst three decades as a result of family planning programmes, but is expected to
stabilise fertility not far below replacement, around 1.8–2.0 children per woman.
This analysis concludes that without urgent promotion of voluntary family plan-
ning, the population projection of SSP1 is not possible and “safe” climate change
pathways are unlikely. In a world of 11 billion people, let alone 14 billion, consider-
Fig. 7.7 Projections of future global population based on population policy, comparing a business-
as- usual scenario (countries continue their recent trends) and a proactive scenario (remaining high-
fertility countries adopt nationwide voluntary family planning programmes, achieving the average
fertility path that past programmes achieved, and low-fertility countries abandon attempts to
increase births). Also depicted for comparison are the UN high-, medium- and low-fertility projec-
tions and 95 % probability range (UNDESA 2015) and the IPCC’s Shared Socioeconomic
Pathways (Samir & Lutz, 2014)
J.N. O’Sullivan

117
ing the requirements for arable land, fresh water, nitrogenous fertiliser and building
materials, even assuming 100% renewable energy, net drawdown of atmospheric
carbon would require implausible levels of carbon capture and storage. It seems
rash to turn our backs on technologies as cheap, reliable and widely benecial as
voluntary family planning in favour of technologies as unproven, costly and poten-
tially damaging as carbon capture and storage.
7.5 Empowering Women andCouples toControl their
Fertility is theMost Cost-Effective Climate Action
Wheeler and Hammer (2010) argued that climate nance could provide a much-
needed boost to the long-neglected goal of universal reproductive rights. Using
country-by-country analyses, they found that avoiding unwanted births through
investments in family planning and girls’ education would avoid greenhouse gas
emissions at considerably lower cost than renewable energy initiatives, and lower
than most reforestation initiatives. This was true even in countries where per capita
emissions are very low. In more than 60 countries, the cost was less than $10 per
tonne. Although spending on family planning avoided more births than spending on
girls’ education, the synergy between these activities meant that lowest-cost emis-
sions reductions were achieved with a combination of both interventions. While the
emissions reduction alone would justify the allocation of funds, the same invest-
ment would simultaneously empower women and improve health, nutrition, educa-
tion and economic outcomes for families.
A USAID study of 16 sub-Saharan African countries in 2006 found that fullling
the unmet need for family planning would not only contribute materially to the
attainment of all other MDGs, but each dollar spent on family planning saved
between two and six dollars by reducing the need for interventions to meet other
development goals (Moreland & Talbird, 2006).
There is a high rate of unwanted pregnancy even in developed countries, where
each avoided birth reduces far more emissions. Even in developed country contexts,
net costs have been found to be negative. A recent programme to reduce teen preg-
nancies in the US state of Colorado lowered the teen birth rate and abortion rate by
40% and 42%, respectively, and saw a similar decline in the number of unintended
pregnancies in unmarried women under the age of 25 (Tavernise, 2015). The pro-
gramme saved Medicaid around $5.85 in perinatal care for every $1 invested
(Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, 2015).
It must be stressed that the successful voluntary family planning programmes of
the past did not rely solely on ensuring access to contraception. Large desired fam-
ily size remains the main determinant of high fertility. Even among those women
who do not want to become pregnant, social and spousal pressure and misconcep-
tions about side effects are more commonly cited reasons for not using modern
contraception than lack of access and affordability (Ryerson, 2010). The successful
programmes promoted the benets of fewer, more widely spaced children, employed
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

118
culturally appropriate means to change social norms around family size and wom-
en’s roles, and addressed the many barriers to achieving fertility regulation
(Campbell, Sahin-Hodoglugil, & Potts, 2009).
More recently, Population Health and Environment programmes, which inte-
grate family planning with livelihood, public health and environmental manage-
ment interventions, are showing that coherent cross-sectoral programmes can
greatly increase community acceptance of (and even enthusiasm for) family plan-
ning, overcoming cultural resistance (PAI etal., 2015). Even in developed countries,
where unintended pregnancy is associated with negative outcomes for women and
children (Brookings Institute, 2011), proactive advice on fertility regulation is prov-
ing effective (Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, 2012).
All these programmes are consistent with the UN Programme of Action adopted
at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (UNFPA,
1994), widely referred to as the Cairo Agenda, which is still upheld as the current
international treaty on population. The Cairo Agenda stresses the negative impacts
of population growth on the environment and on the alleviation of poverty and
advocates responsible parenthood, in which parents should “take into account the
needs of their living and future children and their responsibilities towards the com-
munity” (Para 7.3). The extent to which population growth heightens risks of cli-
mate change impacts should be among the considerations of prospective parents.
Yet such a discourse is shunned by the UN and the development community in the
name of the Cairo Agenda, wrongly claiming that demographic agenda by their
nature conict with reproductive rights (Campbell, 2014). This is a misrepresenta-
tion of the Cairo Agenda, which states (Para 7.12) that “Demographic goals, while
legitimately the subject of government development strategies, should not be
imposed on family planning providers in the form of targets or quotas for the recruit-
ment of clients”. Many successful family planning programmes prior to 1994 have
demonstrated the strong synergy between pursuing demographic agenda and elevat-
ing women’s health and rights. The post-1994 taboo on demographic goals has had
tragic consequences, not least for women’s reproductive health and rights, but also
for the security of the next generation in the face of climate change.
7.6 High-Fertility Countries Face Multiple Challenges
As many commentators have observed, the effects of population change in sub-
Saharan Africa dwarf the likely impacts of climate change on food and water secu-
rity and on environmental damage. Fresh water access is a critical determinant of
community resilience in this regard (Vörösmarty, Green, Salisbury, & Lammers,
2000). It has been estimated that we will need additional fresh water equivalent to
20 Nile Rivers to feed one billion more people (Bigas, 2012). Currently we are add-
ing one billion every 12years or less. Zeng, Neelin, Lau, and Tucker (1999) found
strong evidence that the reduction in rainfall in West Africa over recent decades was
due in larger part to regional vegetation change (deforestation) than to global
J.N. O’Sullivan

119
climate change. Carter and Parker (2009, p.676) evaluated threats to groundwater
access in Africa, and observed:
The climate change impacts [on groundwater] are likely to be signicant, though uncertain
in direction and magnitude, while the direct and indirect impacts of demographic change on
both water resources and water demand are not only known with far greater certainty, but
are also likely to be much larger. The combined effects of urban population growth, rising
food demands and energy costs, and consequent demand for fresh water represent real
cause for alarm, and these dwarf the likely impacts of climate change on groundwater
resources, at least over the rst half of the 21st century.
Figure 7.8 demonstrates how dramatically the projected increase in population
will affect African countries’ ability to feed their own populations in comparison
with the modest changes in rainfall anticipated by Carter and Parker (2009). Food
import dependence is growing in many African and Middle Eastern countries
already (Worldwatch Institute, 2015), exposing them to global food price spikes that
have been shown to be powerful triggers of civil unrest and violent conict (Lagi,
Bertrand, & Bar-Yam, 2011). The dashed lines in Fig.7.8 demonstrate how much
this challenge could be alleviated if these countries emulated the voluntary family
planning successes of the past (using the same model described for Fig.7.7).
While many commentators acknowledge the future risk of violence and displace-
ment caused by population pressure, almost none are willing to recognise its role in
current crises. The Population Institute’s’s (2015) Demographic Vulnerability
Report noted:
Population pressures are also contributing to environmental degradation and political insta-
bility. In effect, rapid population growth is a challenge multiplier, and for many developing
countries the challenges are formidable.
A UK all-party parliamentary committee on population and development also
warned (APPG, 2015):
Population dynamics interact with climate change and with conict to affect people and
communities, and will increasingly do so over the course of the 21st century. If the world is
to achieve sustainable development then there is an urgent need to scale up access to family
planning, and to support sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Moreland and Smith (2012) found that even a modest increase in the rate of fer-
tility decline in Ethiopia would negate the anticipated impacts of climate change on
food security. Thankfully, Ethiopia and Rwanda are now making strong progress to
extend and promote family planning, but most other east African countries are doing
less well.
Apart from the density of population limiting access to natural resources and
their services (particularly for the provision of food), the rate of population growth
itself presents a formidable economic challenge to high-fertility countries.
O’Sullivan (2012) demonstrated that the cost of providing infrastructure, equipment
and trained service providers to cater for population growth greatly exceeds the
extra economic activity that the additional people can generate. Using long time-
series of actual national expenditure in the UK, O’Sullivan (2013) found that it takes
around 7% of GDP to add 1% to the capacity of the nation’s infrastructure in order
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

120
to accommodate 1% more people. An African country growing at 2.5% perannum
might require 17% or more of its GDP to be diverted to infrastructure creation that
achieves no improvement, merely running in order to stand still against the tide of
population growth. This impost, rather than any shortage of land or water, explains
the near-absence of economic development in high-fertility countries presented in
Figs.7.5 and 7.6. Its alleviation is likely to have played a greater role in the “Asian
Tiger” economies than the more commonly cited “demographic dividend” resulting
from shifts in population age distribution (Bloom & Williamson, 1998).
Mutunga and Hardee (2010) reviewed the National Adaptation Plans for Action
prepared by least-developed countries during the UNFCCC’s 2009 climate adapta-
Fig. 7.8 Projected change in rainfall due to climate change (from Carter & Parker, 2009) and in
population (from UNDESA, 2015) in ve sub-Saharan African countries. Histograms give the
medium projection, and area plots indicate the likely range (for population, this is the 80% range
using UN probabilistic projections; UNDESA, 2015). Arable land per person is calculated as a
percentage of that currently available. The dashed pathways are those that would be achievable if
the proactive scenario described in Fig.7.7 were rapidly initiated
J.N. O’Sullivan

121
tion agenda. They found that 37 out of 41 NAPAs highlighted population growth
and density as factors increasing vulnerability, but only one proposed project
included a population component and none were funded. The UNFCCC guidelines
lacked appropriate categories in which population action could be presented as valid
climate action. Without including discussion of population dynamics in the climate
change discourse, this situation is unlikely to be remedied.
7.7 Conclusion
A safe climate future depends on minimising further growth in the human popula-
tion. Strengthening efforts to empower women, to avoid unwanted births and to
popularise smaller families through voluntary, rights-based family planning pro-
grammes are necessary measures without which low-emissions scenarios cannot be
achieved (Guillebaud, 2016).
The IPCC socioeconomic scenarios that achieve low emissions, consistent with
less than 2°C global warming, assume very low population growth, far lower than
current UN expectations (Riahi etal., 2017; Schellnhuber etal., 2016). Yet no pro-
grammes are included in these scenarios to achieve this lower population because it
is assumed that strong economic development and educational advances will
achieve it. Evidence presented in this chapter nds that:
(a) Current trends are for a higher, not lower, population than current UN expecta-
tions, rendering most future emissions scenarios invalid.
(b) In most countries, economic advance has not been a major driver of fertility
decline; on the contrary, fertility decline, driven by voluntary family planning
programmes, has enabled economic advance. Such programmes have been
neglected in recent decades, to the great detriment of the world’s poorest people
and their environment.
Restoring the international support for voluntary family planning programmes,
which existed in the 1970s and 1980s, could reduce the peak human population by
many billions. Such action would reduce emissions at lower cost than almost all
other options, while simultaneously improving climate change resilience of disad-
vantaged communities and achieving a wide range of co-benets with respect to
health, the status of women, economic development of least-developed nations,
nutrition and food security, conict avoidance and protection of biodiversity.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals include target 3.7: “By
2030, ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services,
including for family planning”. Few people appreciate that most other Sustainable
Development Goals targets depend on achieving this long-neglected goal (Starbird,
Norton, & Marcus, 2016).
As Cleland etal. (2006) emphasised, “No contradiction needs to exist between
respect for reproductive rights and strong advocacy for smaller families and for
mass adoption of effective contraceptive methods”. Past population-focused family
planning programmes greatly accelerated the empowerment of women and the
7 Synergy between Population Policy, Climate Adaptation andMitigation

122
adoption of more liberal social attitudes to women’s roles and rights. Their daugh-
ters beneted from the improvement in social attitudes, from less economic strain in
the household and from greater parental investment in their outcomes, including
better nutrition and improved access to schooling and employment opportunities.
The economic and environmental benets for entire nations were evidently substan-
tial. All of these improvements lessen vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.
Yet these manifold benets have not proven compelling enough for the international
community to provide the modest resources needed to extend reproductive freedom
to women in the remaining high-fertility countries. The imperative of avoiding dan-
gerous climate change may be the incentive that is needed to harvest what is clearly
the low-hanging fruit for sustainable development.
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