and more frequent natural disasters which even render some areas uninhabitable. And poor people are the most vulnerable to shocks.

Yet while per capita emissions in the developed world remain much higher than the developing world, their growth seems to have peaked. Most of the projected growth in emissions derives from the developing world, due both to their economic growth and their population growth. Most of all future population growth is projected to take place in these countries, with the highest growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa and the least developed countries.

In this highly complex situation, analysts have focused on policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon tax is proposed as the simplest approach to reduce carbon emissions. By putting a price on carbon emissions, such a tax creates incentives to conserve their use, while providing incentives and fiscal resources for developing cleaner technologies. Some have argued that pricing carbon use could be introduced more gradually in developing countries, to impose less constraint on their potential economic growth.

Neglected in these policy debates is the fact that a substantial part of future growth in emissions derives from population growth, mostly in the poorest countries. While population size is incorporated into models of climate change, the population projections are taken as a given. Yet fertility is highly amenable to policy interventions. For countries which still have high fertility - and which typically have very low per capita emission levels at present because they are still poor, the more immediate approach might be to lower fertility.

Clearly the poorest countries cannot be expected to reduce fertility in order to help the world as a whole, especially when they are suffering from the excesses perpetrated by the rest of the world. However, they have much to gain from lowering fertility. This will increase their available resources per capita to invest in the human and physical capital needed for economic growth. It will also increase per capita resources to strengthen systems for disaster management and for disease prevention and control, to help them cope with the multiplicity of stresses from climate change. It will reduce growth in the demand for jobs and livelihoods. And householdlevel studies show that lower fertility is associated with better schooling and health outcomes and greater female laborforce participation. Fertility decline in poor countries yields a substantial “demographic dividend” in reducing poverty and vulnerability, even without the large additional gains that can be obtained with strong economic policies.

Lower fertility will also benefit the poorest countries by reducing the pace of future global warming, the consequences of which accrue far more to them than to the developed world − both because the developed world lies mostly at higher latitudes that are less negatively affected by climate change, and because they have far greater resources to cope with climate change.

The means to lowering fertility are well-documented. Family planning programs help by increasing access to contraception, and by catalyzing demand for contraception through intensive media outreach. Studies show that not only are family planning programs effective at helping lower fertility, but that they are highly pro-poor in their impact. Easier access to family planning benefits most women who are poor, uneducated, and live in rural areas – those who are least able to access family planning on their own. Family planning programs are a simple, effective, and relatively inexpensive way to achieve a multiplicity of benefits for poor countries.

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