Birth control 'could combat climate change'

CONTRACEPTION advice is crucial to poor countries' battle with climate change, and policy makers are failing their people if they continue to shy away from the issue, a leading family planning expert said.

Leo Bryant, a lead researcher on a World Health Organisation study on population growth and climate change, said the stigma attached to birth control in both developing and developed countries was hindering vital progress.

"We are certainly not advocating that governments should start telling people how many children they can have," said Mr Bryant, an advocacy manager at the family planning group Marie Stopes International, who wrote a commentary in the Lancet medical journal.

Mr Bryant said 200 million women across the world want contraceptives, but cannot get them.

Addressing this need would slow population growth and reduce demographic pressure on the environment.
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World Contraceptive Use 2001 - Substantial Use Increase in 1990's

Worldwide, 62% or 650 million of the more than 1 billion married or in-union women of reproductive age are using contraception. In the more developed regions, 70%of married women use a method of contraception, while in the less developed regions 60 per cent do. In Africa, only 25% are using it, whereas in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean prevalence of contraceptive use is fairly high-66% and 69%, respectively.
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