Supporting universal access to contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies is a largely ignored approach to tackle climate change, researchers argue.
“Experts” from the Population Council argue that contraception has the potential to reduce population grow and corresponding increases in greenhouse emissions.
Traditional solutions put forward to address climate change have focused on minimising emissions and reversing the effects of global warming.
However, the experts argue that the urgency of the world’s climate crisis — and the lack of political will to address such — calls for other solutions to be considered.
Demongrapher John Bongaarts and biomedical researcher Régine Sitruk-Ware of the New York-based non-profit Population Council challenge the traditional approach to addressing the grave threat presented by climate change.
‘The contentious ongoing policy debate about potential interventions focuses on switching to renewable energy sources and increasing energy use efficiency,’ the duo wrote.
‘But given the urgency of the problem and the lack of political will, other approaches to limit greenhouse gas emissions should be given higher priority.
‘Improving access to effective contraception is one such policy that thus far has been largely ignored by the international climate community,’ the pair added.
Contraception should be considered in their discussions, Drs Bongaarts and Sitruk-Ware argue, for the reason that population growth is a key driver of climate change.
The greater availability and more effective use of contraception has been shown to reduce unplanned pregnancies, which serve to increase the populations.
Furthermore, the researchers said, more men and women would elect to use contraception if only it were more widely available and acceptable.
The global population is expected to increase by 3 billion by the year 2100 — reaching a total count of 11 billion.
This growth will increase the rate of greenhouse gas emissions — making global warming an even more intractable challenge in the coming decades than it already is at present.
‘Slower future population growth could reduce emissions globally by an estimated 40 per cent or more in the long term,’ the researchers wrote.
There are around 99 million unintended pregnancies each year — accounting for around 44 per cent of the global total.
Half of these end in an induced abortion, while the rest result in unplanned births or miscarriages.
Past surveys have suggested that a substantial proportion of married women — more than half in some countries — risk unwanted pregnancies by not practising effective contraception.
Obstacles for poor women include the relatively high costs of contraceptives and the lack of access to corresponding services.
According to the authors, however, additional barriers to contraceptive uptake are also created by traditional societal norms, disapproving husbands, limited satisfaction with available solutions and myths around the impacts of hormones.
Although the researchers anticipate that scientists will develop more contraceptive options in the future, action is needed now, they said.
They call for more culturally-sensitive media campaigns, investment in education, political enfranchisement and employment opportunities.
These all have the potential to help change expectations around women’s roles in society and their ability to exercise reproductive choices.
‘Wider distribution of contraceptives already on the market through greater investment in voluntary but underfunded family planning programmes is sufficient to raise contraceptive use substantially,’ they write.
‘This in turn would have a profound positive impact on human welfare, the climate, and the environment.’
The full findings of the study were published in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health.
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Other “experts” recommend: kill one billion djihadists, or they must kill 3 billions non-muslim males, in order to rape daily 4 females, and make many many billions baby djihadists…