State of the World Population 2009 Report

Toespraak | 19-11-2009

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honour to receive the first copy of the State of the World Population report for 2009. Many thanks to UNFPA and the World Population Foundation. A warm welcome to Ms Purnima Mane, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA.

The subjects of this report – gender, population and climate – are very close to my heart. They are all related to my development cooperation priorities.

Poverty, gender equality and population dynamics are closely connected with climate change in several ways:

As the UNFPA report states, the industrialised nations create most of the climate-related problems, but it is the world’s poor who face the biggest problems. Water scarcity, extreme weather events, rising sea levels and agricultural production losses hit the poor hardest.

UNFPA and other researchers have warned that poor women, as carers of families in many developing countries, will suffer most from the effects of climate change. They are the most vulnerable. They are the ones who have to walk further to fetch water. And food insecurity makes it harder for them to feed their families.

By 2050, the global population will most likely have reached nine billion: an increase of one-third from today’s figure. Per capita demand for food, animal feed and bio-energy will be substantially higher than today. Population growth is expected to be highest in areas and populations – poor, urban and coastal – that are already vulnerable to climate change impacts.

This is why a comprehensive approach is necessary. We need to invest in women and girls. We need to invest in population issues. And we need to invest in more sustainable consumption and production patterns.

As Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai has said, women hold the key to the future of the climate. Climate change is commonly seen as a scientific topic or a negotiation issue for technocrats, so the human dimension is often neglected.

We need to pay more attention to social issues and take a more people-centred approach. I am therefore pleased that the SWoP report highlights the fact that approaches to climate change are much more likely to have positive results if they

1. work towards sustainable economic and social development;
2. are based on human rights and respect for cultural diversity; and
3. actively pursue the empowerment of women.

Let me elaborate on this last point. There are clear indications that women suffer more from natural disasters than men. At the same time, we have to avoid seeing women only as victims. Investing in women and girls is smart economics. The UNFPA report shows that women represent an important source of potential and power to mobilise against climate change. ‘As pivotal managers of natural and environmental resources, and key frontline implementers of development, women have the experience and knowledge to build the resilience of their communities to cope with the increasing natural hazards’ . It is vital to include women in community discussions and decision-making.

Gender equality and the empowerment of women, the third Millennium Development Goal, is a priority of the Dutch government. With that in mind, I set up a fund to channel 70 million euros into MDG3 activities. The fund focuses on two areas that are key to generating effective involvement of women: (1) ensuring property and inheritance rights for women and (2) participation and representation of women in national parliaments and other political bodies such as community councils and water boards.

In Bangladesh for instance, we are helping to strengthen the democratic performance of local political parties, with a special focus on female politicians. A hundred women were trained in 2007 and 2008. Thirteen of them ran for office in the 2008 municipal elections. Four of them won seats.

Bangladesh is clearly at risk of climate-related flooding and other disasters. Disaster risk reduction is an important element of our policies on humanitarian aid, development cooperation and climate change adaptation, especially for Bangladesh. Through the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction, we provide support for the identification of disaster risks and effective measures to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience in relevant areas. In Bangladesh local research institutions have used funding from the Global Facility to determine the impact of climate change and the country’s vulnerability to flooding in the context of agriculture and food security. The findings were used to develop practical adaptation measures in the agricultural sector to help minimise the impact that floods have on households and the economy.

Population issues are closely related to issues of reproductive and sexual health and rights, including maternal health. I am glad to see that this is recognised in the report. Last month I worked with UNFPA to organise a High Level Meeting on Maternal Health and MDG 5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Representatives of governments, members of parliament, NGOs, youth organisations, the business community and many other actors were present. In the Addis Call to Urgent Action for Maternal Health we identified a number of key actions for important groups of actors and agreed to:

• Prioritise family planning, one of the most cost-effective development investments.
• Make adolescents a priority. If we invest in adolescent health, education and livelihoods, we will accelerate progress.
• Strengthen health systems with sexual and reproductive health as a priority.

Addressing reproductive health and family planning needs will improve the health and well-being of women, families and society as a whole. Based purely on a cold calculation, you could argue that a low population scenario could result in lower carbon emissions in 2050 and give us more time and space to adapt our lifestyles, consumption and technologies to a less carbon-intensive future.

However, I would caution against making this simplistic, linear correlation between climate change and population. It is redolent of Malthusian population politics focusing on quantitative population targets, but what we need are policies that take sexual and reproductive rights as their starting point. Women have the right to choose when, how many and at what intervals they have children. Very often, they are unable to exercise this right because they have no access to affordable contraceptives.

Research shows that more than 200 million women all over the world would not have become pregnant, or would have done so later, if they had had access to contraceptives. This has to be addressed urgently. In 2008 I increased my contribution to the UNFPA Global Programme on Reproductive Health Commodity Security from 5 million to 30 million euros over four years.

Now let me get back to the important issue of sustainability. The conclusion of a recent study by the International Institute for Environment and Development says: ‘Not growth in the number of people, but growth in the number of consumers and their consumption patterns are the issue’. In the last 30 years, low-income countries accounted for over half of the world’s population growth and more than 12 per cent of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions. In the same period, high-income nations accounted for only 7 per cent of the world’s population growth and one-third of the total growth in carbon dioxide emissions. Take China, for example: there the population growth rate is falling, but greenhouse gas emissions are rising rapidly.

So, promoting behaviour change is important too. I touched on this a moment ago when I mentioned contraception and gender relations. But we also need to invest in sustainable consumption and production patterns. This is one of the major challenges of the twenty-first century.

I’ll give you just one example of the many initiatives we are taking to promote more sustainable lifestyles. A year ago, we launched the Sustainable Trade Initiative, which brings together trade unions, NGOs, the business community and government and draws on expertise from multiple parties to improve working and environmental conditions in international trade. The process of fostering sustainable business practices in the area of cacao and soya bean production and stone mining has been given an enormous boost. The first results are very encouraging. The cacao programme has generated a successful collaboration between the three largest cacao processors and the two largest chocolate companies in the world. Together they control a market share of 40 per cent of global cacao processing and 30 per cent of global chocolate production. The programme has already trained over 2,800 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and certified 1800 of them. Their income has grown, thanks to a 25 per cent increase in productivity and the higher price they are receiving for their cacao from buyers who are prepared to pay more for certified products. This initiative brings together the two main concerns of sustainable trade: the environment and society. And it involves innovative partnerships among different actors. This is why I’m such a strong supporter of the initiative.

In only a few weeks we face the challenge of reaching an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen. We will probably need more time to agree on a binding legal instrument, but it will be possible for us to give a strong signal of political commitment.

For the Netherlands, the following points are essential.

First of all, developed countries should commit to binding reduction targets and as a group reduce emissions by 25-40 per cent relative to 1990 by 2020. By 2050, levels should be reduced by 80 to 95 per cent.

Secondly, we expect the more advanced developing countries to commit themselves to reducing the rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries should achieve a substantial deviation below the currently predicted emissions growth rate, in the order of 15 to 30 per cent. The goal is to decouple economic growth from emissions growth.

This brings me to the third priority: funding mitigation and adaptation measures is a huge financial commitment. The cost of adaptation and mitigation measures in developing countries is expected to total 100 billion US dollars a year by 2020. Europe is ready to take on its fair share of the cost, which should be covered by new and innovative sources of funding wherever possible, in addition to existing ODA commitments.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The connections between gender, population and climate change are complex. But this should never be an excuse for inaction and passivity. We must also resist cynicism and doom-mongering. We have to think and act creatively and innovatively. This report helps us understand complex relationships and focus on social issues. By working together we will be able to achieve more and produce better results.

Thank you.