Resources

This report aims to assess the relationship between climate change and human rights law. It sheds light on the human rights obligations of governments and private actors in responding to climate change, including those relating to rights to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice, as well as obligations relating to adaption and mitigation.

This paper looks at an aspect of climate change that is riddled with knowledge gaps and insufficient informations; it’s impact on women’s health – particularly their sexual and reproductive health – and the inequality dimension of disasters, positing the disproportionate effect disasters have on women, and the exacerbation of gender power imbalances, marginalisation, and vulnerability.

The recognition of sexual and reproductive rights in interventions on climate change is crucial to stop the perpetuation of existing gender norms and gender-based violence, among other things. The current brief seeks to elucidate the nuances of the interlinkages between climate change and sexual and reproductive rights through preliminary evidence available, as well as further advocacy on inclusion of sexual and reproductive rights in the development agenda.

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.

This year’s edition includes a special focus on the world’s youth (ages 15-24), with indicators and analytical graphics that assess whether youth are poised to become productive adults.

Current anthropogenic climate change is the result of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere, which records the aggregation of billions of individual decisions. Here the authors consider a broad range of individual lifestyle choices and calculate their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, based on 148 scenarios from 39 sources.

Includes key population figures and findings.

Anyone who’s ever given a talk on an environmental subject knows that the population question is a near-inevitability (second only to the nuclear question). I used to get asked about it constantly when I wrote for Grist — less now, but still fairly regularly. I thought I would explain, once and for all, why I hardly ever talk about population, and why I’m unlikely to in the future.

If we don’t cut emissions starting now, children born today will grow up in a world of dangerous climate change.

Worlds Apart – Reproductive health and rights in an age of inequality.

In today’s world, gaps in wealth have grown shockingly wide. Billions of people linger at the bottom, denied their human rights and prospects for a better life. At the top, resources and privileges accrue at explosive rates, pushing the world ever further from the vision of equality embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Every month we’ll explore the key issues affecting billions of people across the developing world. Recent editions have looked at why 75 million of the world’s poorest children can’t access education, why El Niño has worsened the food shortages in Malawi and Zimbabwe and how big data offers new tools to help countries meet their development goals.

On Engaging Government in Mainstreaming PHE Approach Towards the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.

Concerning the Philippines.

Slowing the rapid growth of human population through strengthened voluntary family planning services would powerfully and inexpensively contribute to improvements in food security and the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. A confluence of long-term environmental and population trends is undermining world food availability and driving climate change.

Overpopulation is often argued to be the driver behind many of the problems the world faces — from climate change to food insecurity — driven by choices at the level of individuals and families. One way to reduce the impact of population could be to include family planning in carbon markets. Here’s how it could work.

When Keya Chatterjee and her husband Andrew Kravetz decided to have a child, they knew it would test their commitment to sustainable living. Although they had installed solar panels on their home, lowered their energy use, and purchased only recycled or used items, they recognized that having a child would dramatically increase their carbon footprint if they didn’t take action.

This publication argues that

1. Population dynamics have a significant influence on sustainable development.
2. Efforts to promote sustainable development that do not address population dynamics will continue to fail.
3. Population dynamics are not destiny. Change is possible through a set of policies which respect human rights and freedoms and contribute to a reduction in fertility, notably access to sexual and reproductive health care, education beyond the primary level, and the empowerment of women.

We developed a computer simulation model to help clarify the dynamic relationships between climate change, food security, and population growth.  The aim was to develop a model that would be simple enough to adapt to a country and that could be used at the policy level to introduce population issues into the dialogue on adaptation to climate change in the context of food security.

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. We carry out a comprehensive assessment of the implications of demographic change for global emissions of carbon dioxide.

Here we estimate the extra emissions of fossil carbon dioxide that an average individual causes when he or she chooses to have children. The summed emissions of a person’s descendants, weighted by their relatedness to him, may far exceed the lifetime emissions produced by the original parent. A person’s reproductive choices must be considered along with his day-today activities when assessing his ultimate impact on the global environment.

This reports looks at the links between rapid population growth and concerns regarding climate change. The paper analyses the first 40 National Adaptation Programmes of Action reports submitted by governments of LDCs to the Global Environment Facility for funding. Of these documents, 93% identified demographic trends to interact with the effects of climate change. The paper concludes by calling for increased support for rights-based family planning services as an important complementary measure to climate change adaptation programmes in developing countries.

This report aims to assess the relationship between climate change and human rights law. It sheds light on the human rights obligations of governments and private actors in responding to climate change, including those relating to rights to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice, as well as obligations relating to adaption and mitigation.

A fact sheet on climate change and the importance of taking action.

This chapter of the IPCC report contains the statement we use when advocating for the inclusion of family planning as part of adaptation strategies.

A policy brief laying out the connections between population and climate change, discussing both the problems poulation growth created for responding to climate change as well as the potential solutions.

Using an energy–economic growth model that accounts for a range of demographic dynamics, this paper shows how that slowing population growth could provide 16–29% of the emissions reductions suggested to be necessary by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change.

This report outlines the major threats—both direct and indirect—to global health from climate change through changing patterns of disease, water and food insecurity, vulnerable shelter and human settlements, extreme climatic events, and population growth and migration.

An analysis of the NAPAs discussing the connections countries make between population and cliamte change. It includes lessons learnt from the countries that have include references to family planning/reproductive health in their NAPAs.

The human footprint has grown to such a scale that it has become a major geophysical force. While there are many ways we might reduce our per capita footprint on the planet, the collective impact of those footprints will always be multiplied by global population. This makes population an issue which cannot be ignored.

A comprehensive report about the effects of population growth and consumption patterns on the planet.

An overview on how climate change can alter where species live, how they interact, and the timing of biological events, which could fundamentally transform current ecosystems and food webs.

With more than 7.3 billion people on the planet, it’s easy to assume someone else will tackle and solve the issue of population and environment. Yet it is an issue that affects us all, and as such we’re all responsible for working towards a sustainable future in which everyone is able to enjoy a good quality of life without destroying the very things we rely on to survive.

Article in ARROW for Change Bulletin Vol. 23 No. 2 2017 “SRHR in the Era of the SDGs”

“SRHR in the Era of the SDGs”: In line with recent developments, this edition provides an up-to-date primer on universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and universality of Sexual and Reproductive Rights (SRR); the “what, for whom and how” of universal access to SRH and the challenges facing universality of SRR, including the limitation of sexuality within the framework of marriage and family, and ethno-religious conservative groups that seeks to strengthen their national religious identity.

Survey of recent peer-reviewed health and environmental research testing the hypothesis that the use of FP contributes to environmental sustainability. While the hypothesis cannot be confirmed, especially due to research rarely considering directly this hypothesis, access to and use of especially modern contraception is found to reduce fertility by preventing unwanted pregnancies, slowing population growth.

Links family planning to the SDGs. Voluntary family planning brings transformational benefits to women, families, communities, and countries. Investing in family planning is a development ‘‘best buy’’ that can accelerate.

This policy brief explores the connections between women, their access to family planning, population, and resilience, and makes the case that investments that aim to improve women’s access to rights-based voluntary family planning are critical to building resilience.

New estimates for 2014 show that sexual and reproductive health services fall well short of needs in developing regions. An estimated 225 million women who want to avoid a pregnancy are not using an effective contraceptive method. Each year 74 million pregnancies are unintended. Because increases in contraceptive use have barely kept up with growing populations, this number is virtually unchanged since the Adding It Up report for 2008.

In May 2017, the African Great Lakes Conference: Conservation and Development in a Changing Climate was held in Entebbe, Uganda. This conference sought to increase coordination, strengthen capacity, inform policy with science, and promote basin-scale ecosystem management in the region.

Achievement across the 5 Sustainable Development Goal themes of People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnerships.

This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognise that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan.

The UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters was adopted on 25th June 1998 in the Danish city of Aarhus at the Fourth Ministerial Conference in the ‘Environment for Europe’ process.

The ICPD held in Cairo in 1994 and its resulting Programme of Action moved population policies and programmes away from a focus on human numbers to a focus on human rights and underscored the mutually reinforcing linkages between population and development. It recognized that reproductive health, including sexual health, and reproductive rights, as well as gender equality and women’s empowerment, are important ends in themselves and key to improving the quality of life for everyone.

Only seven countries mention dimensions of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), even though about a third link climate change and population growth. Predominantly developing and least developed countries express concern about the links between changes in climate and a growing population, while most developed countries are silent on the matter.

Only seven Parties to the Paris Agreement mention sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) – such as voluntary family planning – in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), even though about a third link climate change and population growth. Predominantly developing and least developed countries express concern about the links between changes in climate and a growing population.

The COP23 is significant for women! After five years of advocating for inclusion of gender in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) discussions and actions, the Gender Action Plan (GAP) was finally adopted on Gender Day (14 November 2017).

UN Environment held its third General Assembly in Nairobi in December under the overarching theme of pollution. At the end of the summit, the world’s leaders committed to a pollution-free planet and adopted a resolution on health and environment.

The CBA conference takes place every year gathering constituencies engaged in community based adaptation in discussions about how communities suffering from the effects of climate change can improve their adaptation efforts. In 2017 the conference was held in Kampala, Uganda and theme was ‘Harnessing natural resources and ecosystems for adaptation’.

Poverty (SDG1) and hunger (SDG2) rarely stem from a single source of bad health (SDG3), gender inequality (SDG5), poor infrastructure (SDG9) or unsustainable use of the oceans (SDG14). They stem from multiple issues that interfere with each other and increase the impact of one another, and many people are facing double, triple and more challenges that hamper their means to live sustainable lives.

With mounting pressure from policies introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump that cut funds for family planning programmes worldwide, providers are being forced to deliver more with less. The pioneering work of environmental groups partnering with health agencies is drawing attention to people living in isolated areas, who fall outside of the laser focus on cost-effectiveness and are at risk of being left behind, by providing an elegant solution for meeting their needs.

This guide consists of 15 chapters covering the core values, skills and knowledge needed to develop and implement effective cross-sector Population-Health-Environment (PHE) partnerships. It starts with a thorough introduction to the PHE approach, followed by an organisational capacity assessment and development planning section to enable you to tailor your use of this guide to your needs. This guide is primarily designed for use by the staff of environmental organisations wishing to develop cross-sector PHE partnerships with health service providers in line with priority community needs and their organisational missions.

A discussion on the importance of considering family planning actions not only as essential for the health and empowerment of girls and women, but also as fundamental for the success of conservation programmes.

Access to voluntary and rights-based, quality family planning information and services is not only essential to women and girls’ health and empowerment but also has the potential to contribute significantly to sustainability – including adapting to and responding to climate change. 

The objective of the study was to compare natural resource management with and without family planning interventions in the Bale Eco-Region (BER).

This advocacy and communications toolkit is aimed at national family planning advocates to enable them to engage in climate change policy discussions to further, not only family planning goals, but also contribute to climate change objectives.

This documentary shows how women are the most burdened with Climate Change. In Mindoro Island, fishers catch lesser fish as women give birth to more children. The film explores the need for SRHR services amongst these communities, to improve resilience to the mothers of the shore and the future they face.

In Sarawak, Malaysia, the Borneo Tropical Forest is fading into corporate land. The Women of the Kayan and Penan tribe struggle in both mad made destruction and the effects of Climate Change. This film points out how SRHR should be included in Climate Change action and dialogue to protect the rights and health of these women whose struggles are often unnoticed.

The voices of the women living in a raging Climate. This story is part of a regional research on “Building New Constituencies for Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and Climate Change.

This article examines the community-based distribution (CBD) of family planning commodities in rural Ethiopia through EWNRA’s large, multisectoral PHE program.

For the first time ever, the IPCC recognized the social dimensions of climate change adaptation. The report highlights population dynamics and the important role that family planning can play in reducing climate change vulnerability and as a potential adaptation strategy.

Lake Chilwa is an important ecosystem that provides services which are critical to the wellbeing and livelihoods of people living in the basin. Addressing population growth and migration in Lake Chilwa Basin will help improve ecosystems functions and reduce environmental degradation.

Although the PHE approach has been implemented in Gurage Zone of South Ethiopia, its outcomes have not been evaluated. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the PHE approach for achieving family planning (FP) and fertility outcomes in Gurage Zone. A comparative correctional study involving both quantitative and qualitative data was conducted from October 2 to 8, 2012. A total of 960 married women of reproductive age (15-49) were included in the study.

This policy brief examines the effects of implementing an integrated program that includes population, health and environmental (PHE) components compared to implementing a vertical family planning program in the Guraghe zone, SNNPR based on quantitative and qualitative data generated from a comparative cross sectional study conducted from October 2 to 8, 2012.

Decision makers engaged in crafting climate change policy responses at local, national, and international levels should assess population trends and their interactions with efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Global institutions that support and promote climate change adaptation and low carbon development strategies can be strengthened through the inclusion of population factors in determining priorities for investment; likewise, national climate and development plans will be stronger when population trends are taken into consideration.

RH/FP and Livelihood Results through Integration of Population, Health and Environment (PHE)