TWO-MINUTE TALKING POINT - What does population growth mean for climate change? by Laurie Goering - YouTube
Published on Jul 11, 2013
"You might think that cutting population growth is most important in places like Africa, where birthrates are higher than anywhere else in the world. ...But in fact, it's curbing population in rich, developed countries that has the biggest influence on climate change."
-- Laurie Goering, Thomson Reuters Foundation Climate editor/ Head of Climate Programme
In the things we do each day, each of us are changing the world's climate. We cook meals, travel, build homes, heat them, turn on the lights when the sun goes down.
The cheapest and most effective way to curb climate change, most experts agree, is to get contraceptive services to the more than 220 million women around the world who want them but can't currently access them. Experts say the cost of doing that would be about $4 billion -- a tiny fraction of the cost of damage from climate-linked storms, which now runs into hundreds of billions of dollars around the world each year.
An average American produces about 17 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The average Nigerian produces a little over half a tonne. That means that each additional child born in America will produce 28 times as many climate-changing emissions each year as a child born in Nigeria.
...When it comes to curbing climate change, rich families may need to begin acting a little more like Nigerians -- not by having bigger families but by reducing the resources they use and the emissions they produce.