PSN at Copenhagen Climate Change Summit

1 January 2010

PSN is now part of a coalition, the Population and Climate Change Alliance (PCCA), which was born out of a meeting in Geneva in June 2009, and includes PAI, UNFPA, MSI, IPPF, Sex og Samfund (Danish IPPF member association),and the Inter-European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development.  The "point of departure for the PCCA is that the climate change agenda is one of the most decisive one for all future international cooperation - and the linkages with the population-theme are obvious and controversial at the same time. If the progressive SRHR movement doesn't get the arguments around population policies right - others will take over the agenda". 

PCCA had three inputs into the Copenhagen process: -

• An exclusive lunch-meeting for approximately 75 MPs from both the South and the North - with a specific focus on adaption and how voluntary and rights based family planning can help reduce vulnerability in the developing countries most hit by climate change
• A lunch-meeting for approximately 50 youth leaders from environmentalist NGOs from the South - with a specific focus on adaption and how voluntary and rights based family planning can help reduce vulnerability in the developing countries most hit by climate change. This meeting will naturally have a focus on how young people can work with this agenda and try to influence policy and decision makers in their own countries
• A side event - with a broader focus on the linkages between climate change and RHR.

PSN's Karen Newman was one of three speakers/facilitators at both lunch meetings and was also invited to participate at the side event.  PSN had an information stand at the Conference with copies of the PSN fact sheet, plus reprints of the WHO bulletin article on the NAPAs, written by Leo Bryant (MSI) and Louise Carver of PSN.