Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program’s “New Security Beat”: When It Comes to Water Scarcity, Population Growth Tops Climate Change
Robert Engelman, senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute and project director of the Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment (FPESA), discusses findings from a FPESA report released at a Wilson Center event that suggests population growth has a greater impact on water availability than climate change. In light of this finding, Engelman writes, “Since the widespread use of contraception yields slower population growth, among its many other benefits, and since continued population growth today is very likely a factor in environmental decline, encouraging access to and the use of voluntary family planning is likely to have environmental benefits — not the least of which is more freshwater availability” (8/1).