At the same time, the rising population in Pakistan – and elsewhere around the world - is creating more climate-changing emissions and putting more people in the path of extreme weather, food and water shortages, and other climate change pressures.
That suggests that giving more women who want it access to birth control to limit their family size – in both rich and poor countries – could be a hugely effective way to curb climate change and to build greater resilience to its impacts, according to population and climate change researchers and policy experts.
"We're not talking about population control. We're talking about giving people the choice to limit their family size and all the good things that go on from that" such as better health and education, said Baroness Jennny Tonge, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, during an event at the UK Parliament Monday on linking population and climate issues.
Bringing together two politically contentious concerns – climate change and managing population growth – in an effort to build effective policy has been far from easy.
"They're both sensitive and it's difficult to make headway on either, much less both together," admitted Jason Bremner, a demographer and associate vice president of the Population Reference Bureau.
Still, an international coalition of experts on climate change, family planning and development aid are now pushing for universal access to family planning to be recognized as a part of "climate-compatible development" and included in new U.N.-backed Sustainable Development Goals set to be agreed in September.
Some countries, such as Ethiopia, already have included family planning among the activities they want to undertake on climate change, using international climate finance, according to an analysis by the London-based Population and Sustainability Network.
Read more at Birth Control Access Key Means of Reaching Climate Goals: Experts
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