Commentary—

People Omitted From Climate Change Equation

By John Seager

Every day we read reports about fuel-efficient cars, wind turbines, and geothermal energy. All seek to cut carbon emissions.

Yet, there is near-total silence about the role of global population growth and the need for population stabilization. Serious discussion of it was absent from international climate meetings in both Kyoto and Montreal and from almost every other public forum.

Scientists warn that temperatures will continue to rise unless we reduce greenhouse gas levels. Global warming will be accompanied by increased average sea levels of 4 inches to 35 inches, flooding homes and destroying fragile wetlands. To stop this process, it is estimated that global CO2 emissions must be slashed by at least 40 percent.

Yet the United Nations projects that world population will rise by 40 percent to 9.1 billion by 2050. Even if we change our ways, the environmental footprint of each human will never reach zero. As population increases, the challenge becomes ever more difficult.

After all, it is people, not birds or bears, who drive the Hummers and the hybrids, who heat and cool homes and offices. Although the vast majority of population growth occurs in the least-developed nations, they, too, are using more fossil fuels every day as they seek better lives.

What can we do? We know that family planning works everywhere. When women and couples are free to make their own informed choices and have access to education and supplies, they choose to have smaller families. Thirty years ago, for example, Mexican women had almost seven children each. Today, thanks to a serious campaign, they have an average of 2.6 children.

Globally, there are at least 350 million couples who lack family planning services. Even here in the United States, one-third of all births are unplanned. And the Bush administration’s family planning failures, from its Global Gag Rule to ideologically driven abstinence-only programs that mock serious sex education, contribute directly to millions of unwanted and unplanned births.

If we could cut by half the number of unwanted births in the United States, we’d have about five million fewer over 20 years. Family planning makes sense for people — and for our fragile planet.

India is an emerging economic power, producing more cars every day. Yet less than half of all Indian women use family planning.

Yes, in the poorest places on earth, people use much less energy, but birth control will improve their lives as well as make a bit more progress toward meeting the global warming challenge. In the impoverished African nation of Niger, a nation of 12 million about twice the size of Texas, three out of every five people live on less than $1 each day. Only 14 percent of women use any form of contraception. A small investment in family planning would improve the lives of millions of people.

Conversely, having more people will use more energy. The sooner we stabilize population, the more likely we are to meet the climate change challenge.

I’s good to focus on thorny, highly technical issues such as tax credits, energy alternatives, and emissions trading programs. It’s especially important here in the United States, where less than five percent of the world’s population produces about one quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

But cutting energy consumption must be coupled with stabilizing population. If we had zero population growth, part of the global warming problem would, well, melt away.

Global warming is too important just to be left to the politicians or to the energy experts. It’s about people — all of us. It’s about how many of us there are and how we choose to live our modern lives. It’s about the very personal decisions we make about when, whether, and how many children we choose to have.

The weather depends on whether we’re willing to meet the population challenge in today’s world of 6.5 billion people.

(John Seager is national president of Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth), the national grassroots population organization.)