Author: |Posted: 9:00 pm on 18/11/09
Category: Faisal Islam on Economics
It’s tough for a fourth child out of five to take seriously the idea that he should never have been born.
But the effect of society’s choices over family size is undoubtedly worth considering in terms of the effect on climate change.
Some close to the Copenhagen negotiations feel that its the elephant in the room.
Certainly population growth is a vital determinant of how much humanity consumes, but not on the official agenda for those urgent talks to limit global carbon emissions.
So a delicate issue, yet today, for the first time the United Nations issued a report linking demographic pressures to climate change.
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UN Population Fund told me today that ‘this is the first time we are clearly speaking about the link between population growth and climate change’.
In 1994 in Cairo the UN did say that population was linked to environment, but this is the first time the body has linked it specifically to climate change.
The report quotes an intriguing study which says that putting the world into a low population growth path, leading to 8 billion rather than 9 billion people on the planet by 2050, would save 2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
But it’s not just that: there’s a huge wedge of the world’s population soon to come to child-bearing age … so is the answer for those rapidly growing countries to adopt coercive Chinese-style single child policies?
No, says the UN, this is not about forced population control, but enabling women to decide for themselves to have less children.
Education, empowerment of women, and contraception can all help mitigate climate change, says the report.
Of course almost all the likely growth in world population is happening in developing countries who emit far less Carbon than for example a child in Europe or America.
It’s the process of development that will see that population growth be increasingly carbon intensive.
The middle class in the world – earning at least $8000 a year stands at around 800 million now but is forecast to grow rapidly in the next two decades to 2 billion by 2030.
That’s two billion people who want to fly in planes, drive cars and eat lots of carbon intensive meat.
But that development will also naturally limit population growth as people become richer. so it’s a complex picture.
For now this is a new direction for the UN – the suggestion that condoms aswell as low carbon cars, can limit climate change. But it won’t be discussed in Copenhagen.
Author: |Posted: 9:48 am on 06/11/09
Category: Copenhagen: Deal or No Deal?
BARCELONA, SPAIN – So it’s official. There will be no legally binding treaty in Copenhagen.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer says so; a senior EU negotiator says so; even the genially optimistic Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband says so – telling the Commons: “The UN negotiations are moving too slowly and not going well.”
As one European delegate at this last round of talks before Copenhagen told me: “We’re out of time to agree a fully worked-up treaty.” read more
Author: |Posted: 5:07 pm on 27/10/09
Category: Copenhagen: Deal or No Deal?
Don’t be fooled by the environ/political herd mentality because “The Day After Tomorrow” scenario cuts both ways.
More than one thing is happening to this little planet because of humankind. Yes – it seems to be heating up because of carbon/methane emissions. But consider our old friend oil for a moment, beyond being a culprit in that story.
read more
Author: |Posted: 4:18 pm on 22/10/09
Category: Copenhagen: Deal or No Deal?
Retiring to the Mediterranean might turn out to be a very bad idea according to this latest offering from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Met Office. read more
Author: |Posted: 12:35 pm on 21/10/09
Category: Copenhagen: Deal or No Deal?
Jane Deith blogs:
Gordon Brown has warned of “climate catastrophe” unless the world can come to some sort of agreement to tackle global warming.
In the East Midlands town of Kettering people don’t need convincing climate change is real, they’ve woken up and smelled the carbon.
The United Nations came to Kettering to ask 100 of its ‘global citizens’ what kind of climate deal they want the world to cut in Copenhagen.
Their verdict was harsh, but fair. read more
Author: |Posted: 12:35 pm on 17/10/09
Category: Copenhagen: Deal or No Deal?
For there to be a substantive deal in Copenhagen there must be numbers. Numbers that spell out the commitments rich, developed countries make to cut their greenhouse gas emissions; and numbers for how much money they’re prepared to give to developing countries to help them develop low-carbon economies.
Developing countries – from those with big, fast-growing economies like China and India to tiny Pacific island states that might vanish if sea levels rise – want the wealthy Western economies like America and Europe to demonstrate they accept responsibility for their historic fossil-fuelled industrial growth that’s caused the rise in greenhouse gas emissions we’ve seen so far.
So they want the rich countries to make legally-binding commitments to reduce their emissions significantly. And they want to see the numbers. read more
Author: |Posted: 1:00 pm on 12/10/09
Category: World News Blog
In December 1982, I moved to Kenya. For three years I worked for UNICEF, before becoming a journalist based in Nairobi.
Since I left in 1989, I’ve visited every year or so, but this is the first time I’ve been back to the arid north where Samburu, Turkana, Pokot and other people herd their cattle, goats and camels.
I’m shocked and angry at what I’ve seen. read more
Author: |Posted: 2:47 pm on 23/09/09
Category: World News Blog
It’s a bit of a cheap shot – to ask any of the world leaders at the climate change summit whether they think the 15 car motorcades they drive around in, blocking the streets of Manhattan, send the right message at a summit on global warming.
But of course someone asked it anyway. read more
Author: |Posted: 11:15 am on 23/09/09
Category: World News Blog
No wonder New Yorkers hate it so much when the UN General Assembly comes to town.
I myself have sore feet after I had to make a 12 block detour to get back to my hotel room, all because Colonel Gaddafi was arriving in town and New York’s finest took this as an excuse to close many of the streets.
Author: |Posted: 10:39 am on 23/09/09
Category: Snowblog
We were all spooked by it – the idea of a nuclear holocaust that would obliterate the world.
As boys we talked about it a lot, at no time more so than after reading Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach’. Set in Australia this was apocalyptic and desperately human account of the end of the planet.
Now I encounter teenagers spooked by a different end to their world, an end they foresee occurring within their lifetime.
read more
