Columbia University researchers have concluded that severe water shortages in the Southeast of the United States result from population growth more than rainfall patterns.
It's estimated that some 63,000 pregnant Haitian women face the prospect of delivering in the aftermath of the earthquake. Of these 7,000 of these will deliver in the next month. Fifteen per cent of the pregnancies will require emergency care for life-threatening complications. Newborns face even higher risk.
One month after the Copenhagen climate summit, its achievements are being appraised. Whilst the lack of strongly binding agreements and commitments to tackling emissions was disappointing, there was some success in highlighting the links between population and climate change, and bringing the question of population growth onto the agenda.
PSN will host a major symposium on the 1-2 March in London to further explore the links, with speakers and participants from both the developed world, and from the less developed southern countries which face the biggest and most urgent challenges of climate change.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on January 8, declared the US government's renewed support for and dedication to international family planning and reproductive health programs in a major speech on the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). She said investing in women-including by helping them time and space their pregnancies and by providing pregnancy-related care-"is essential to the prosperity and opportunity of all, to the stability of families and communities, and the sustainability and development of nations."
This strong endorsement of family planning and reproductive health care as core components of US global health and development policy came as the Obama administration readies its signature Global Health Initiative, which aims to revamp US health and development assistance worldwide. The Initiative features the reduction of unintended pregnancies and improved maternal and child health as two of four main pillars.
The keenly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference has closed in Copenhagen this week. Representatives from 192 countries were in attendance.
The Conference in Copenhagen failed to reach a deal on reduction targets of industrialized and emerging nations for greenhouse-gas emissions, but succeeded in setting the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the coming years, and secured aid from developed nations to help poor nations cope with the effect of climate change.
PSN had a high profile presence at the conference, with Co-ordinator Karen Newman being speaking at, and / or facilitating, a number of key meetings.
The Conference in Copenhagen failed to reach a deal on reduction targets of industrialized and emerging nations for greenhouse-gas emissions, but succeeded in setting the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the coming years, and secured aid from developed nations to help poor nations cope with the effect of climate change.
In a new report issued on Wednesday, 18 November, UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, shows how people, especially empowered women, could make a difference in the fight against climate change.
The State of World Population 2009, entitled Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate, was launched in London, Washington, D.C., Paris, Bangkok, Johannesburg, Mexico City and more than 120 other capitals worldwide.
UNFPA also released the report's youth supplement, At the Frontier: Young People and Climate Change, featuring profiles of youth already facing the challenges of a warming world.
An international meeting focusing on research and best practices in family planning opened in Kampala on 15 November, in an attempt towards achieving United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for developing countries.
The international conference has been co-sponsored by The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Makerere University's School of Public Health, and the Implementing Best Practices Initiative along with other international and national partners.
Keynote speakers and presenters include the First Lady of Uganda, Janet Kataha Museveni, and Dr. Stephen Mallinga, Uganda's Minister of Health, as well as dignitaries from Brazil and several African nations. Stewards of the conference include representatives from WHO, World Bank, USAID, UNFPA, Family Health International, the Gates and Packard Foundations, the Bloomberg School and many other organizations. Presentations will cover groundbreaking research topics including contraceptive technology and family planning issues such as integrating contraception and HIV prevention; male options for family planning; and contraceptive commodity security.
Legislation currently before the Philippine Congress would require governments down to the local level to provide free or low-cost reproductive health services, including condoms, birth control pills, tubal ligations and vasectomies. It would also mandate sex education in all schools, public and private, from fifth grade through high school.
The Philippine population is estimated at 98 million and is growing at more than 2 percent annually, one of the highest rates in Asia, threatening social crisis, as supporters of the bill recognise.
But attempts to make reproductive services more broadly available have met resistance, leading to the defeat of several bills in Congress over the past decade.
One of the world's most influential scientists has warned that climate change could devastate Africa, predicting an increase in catastrophic food shortages.
Professor Sir Gordon Conway, the outgoing chief scientist at the UK's Department for International Development, and former head of the philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation, argued in a new scientific paper (pdf) that the continent is already warming faster than the global average and that people living there can expect more intense droughts, floods and storm surges.
Granting women control over their own reproduction would combat overpopulation and reduce carbon emissions, writes Mary Fitzgerald.
NEW YORK - Women are uniquely positioned to help curb the harmful consequences of a changing climate, according to a new comprehensive on-line resource kit on gender, population and climate change launched today by UNFPA and the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO).
"Climate change is happening now and is setting back global development efforts by decades," said Xuan Nguyen, Executive Director of WEDO. "Though climate change magnifies existing discrimination and inequalities, women are not simply victims - they are innovators, organizers, educators, caretakers, leaders, agents of change."
It's a sure bet that women won't be high on the agenda, or even listed on the program, when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon convenes a climate change summit of world leaders on September 22. Women are also likely to be missing at the make-or-break emissions reduction conference in Copenhagen in December.
September 2009 sees the 15 year progress review of implementation of the Programme of Action (PoA), produced at the 1994 landmark United Nations Intergovernmental conference; The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).
John Beddington, the UK government's Chief Scientific Advisor, has added his voice to a chorus of recent high profile warnings about the impact of population growth linked with climate change.
Predicting an increase in competition for food, water and energy, he foresees a crisis developing over the next couple of decades - with rising food prices, rising levels of hunger and emigration from worst hit areas.
The Punjab government has expressed fears that if population growth is not contained, the country's population may double in 39 years, to 190 million by 2020.
Washington, DC, August 13 - The world's population is set to reach 7 billion in 2011, a year earlier than expected, and most of the growth is occurring in the developing world, the Population Research Bureau said in a report released yesterday.
HONG KONG -- More than 13 million abortions are performed each year in China, according to statistics disclosed by Chinese health officials on Thursday, a marked increase from 2003, the most recent statistics available.
Fears of an ageing population means that China's biggest city and financial hub, Shanghai, is now highlighting exceptions to the One Child Policy that allow couples to have two children - although only particular kinds of people can apply.
The problem of limited access to contraceptives is taking centre stage at an African Union (AU) meeting currently underway in Maputo.
Since Monday, health experts have been holding talks in the Mozambican capital about a plan of action that seeks to provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services across the continent. This comes ahead of a gathering of AU ministers of health (Sep. 21-22), who are expected to adopt the plan.
This year the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time in history, more than half its population will be living in urban areas. In Kenya, rapid urbanisation is creating deepening poverty among urban residents.
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report 'State of the World Population' published last year, poor people will make up a large part of future urban growth. Most urban growth in developing countries now stems from natural increase (more births than deaths) rather than migration from rural areas.