IPS Inter Press Service: Rising Seas Demand Better Family Planning

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48348

CLIMATE CHANGE: Rising Seas Demand Better Family Planning

by Julio Godoy

BERLIN, Sep 6 (IPS) - A rising population and climate change need to be considered together in an integrated policy, experts demanded at a forum on sexual and reproductive health and development held in Berlin Sep. 2-4.

Family planning is not at present being considered in the context of climate change, even though national adaptation programmes to climate change of the less developed countries point out the link between population growth and pressure on the environment within the context of climate change.

The governments of the 40 poorest countries have recently linked population growth and environmental catastrophes, but few directly address population growth in their adaptation strategies to climate change.

"Family planning in the developing world remains within its reproductive health sector 'silo', and has yet to be addressed on a large scale with the multi-sector approach it both merits and requires," Leo Bryant, a British activist for sexual education and health at the Marie Stopes International foundation told IPS. Marie Stopes provides family planning, abortion, vasectomy and other reproductive healthcare services around the world.

Since 2004, 41 of the poorest countries have submitted their adaptation plans to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In an analysis of these for the World Health Organisation (WHO), Bryant reviewed 40 of the plans, and found that governments identify population issues as linked directly to climate change.

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