Population Action International

Population and Climate Change

PAI’s Climate Change Initiative is an ambitious multi-year program of research, advocacy, and strategic communications designed to bring our experience and expertise to the critical and complex relationships among population, gender, and climate change. This work strengthens understanding of the influence of population on greenhouse gas emissions, demonstrates how demographic variables relate to climate change vulnerability, and expands the concept of climate change resilience by highlighting critical gender, fertility, and reproductive health dimensions.

PAI has joined with multiple collaborators, including the the Joint Global Change Research Institute and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in a multi-disciplinary effort including the following program areas:

Population and the IPCC: Examining and clarifying population assumptions in the reports and scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading climate science body whose work forms the basis of most climate-related policy

Mapping Vulnerabilities to Climate Change: Developing interactive mapping tools that illustrate relationships among projected climate change impacts, demographic trends, reproductive health needs, and other socioeconomic factors related to climate change vulnerability

Strengthening Understanding of Climate Change Resilience: Conducting country case studies that explore resilience and climate change coping strategies, including to the role of women and reproductive health/family planning

Analyzing Climate Change and the MDGs: Deepening understanding of the links among climate change impacts, population and demographic variables, and prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Linking Population, Fertility and Family Planning with Adaptation to Climate Change: Views from Ethiopia

Population Action International (PAI) and Miz-Hasab Research Center (MHRC), in collaboration with the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), have undertaken a study to explore how communities in Ethiopia react to and cope with climate variation, which groups are considered most vulnerable, what resources communities need to adapt to climate changes, and also the role of family planning and reproductive health in increasing resilience to climate change impacts.


Population and Reproductive Health in National Adaptation Programs of Action

This paper reviews 41 National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs) submitted by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and identifies the range of interventions included in countries’ priority adaptation actions. The review found near-universal recognition among the NAPAs of the importance of population considerations as a central pillar in climate change adaptation.


Projecting Population, Projecting Climate Change: Population in IPCC Scenarios

Population Action International’s latest working paper, Projecting Population, Projecting Climate Change: Population in IPCC Scenarios, shows that population growth is not adequately accounted for in the emissions scenarios produced by the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is the second in a three part series that explores role of population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation.


How Do Recent Population Trends Matter To Climate Change?

Population growth is one of the driving forces behind the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, along with economic growth and technological change. Rapid population growth also hinders socioeconomic development and increases human vulnerability to the devastating impacts of climate change. Population Action International’s new working paper “How Do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?” is the first in a three-part series that will deepen understanding of the relationships between population and climate change.


Population: An Overlooked Factor in Climate Change Solutions

Slower population growth would have significant benefits in addressing climate change. When combined with effective renewable energy and energy efficiency technology, slower population growth would help to put the brakes on fossil fuel-related emissions growth, relieve pressure on forests and other natural resources that absorb carbon dioxide, buy time for the spread of green technology, and reduce the scale of human vulnerability to climate change impacts.