PAI Commits to Exploring Connections between Population and Global Climate Change; Hires Pre-eminent Researcher

Washington, DC… Following an extensive year-long analysis, Population Action International (PAI) has committed to a multi-year, multi-disciplinary program to identify and explore the connections between population and global climate change (GCC). PAI’s research will focus on conducting in-depth analysis into these connections and illuminate how access to voluntary family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) services can help enhance GCC mitigation and adaptation efforts. The goals are to gain a better understanding of the influence of demography on GCC and how FP/RH improves the well-being of those vulnerable to global climate change.

“Climate change is emerging as the most pressing issue of our century and cannot be ignored,” said Amy Coen, President/CEO of PAI. “The intersections between population issues and global climate change have received little attention and yet many of the world’s poorest countries will be disproportionately affected by environmental changes. Despite this fact, family planning and reproductive health programs have few proponents in the climate change scientific community. PAI feels it is our obligation to explore this complicated issue that will have a huge impact on the world’s most vulnerable citizens – women and their families.”

PAI has a long history as a pioneer in identifying the role population plays in the environment.  From the conservation of biodiversity to natural resource management to climate change, nearly every issue facing the global environment is connected to the people on the planet and how and where they live. 

PAI’s work on climate change will be organized into five areas:

1. Strengthening understanding of factors supporting community and individual resiliency and adaptation to the effects of climate change;
2. Mapping regional vulnerability to illustrate areas where population pressures and points of rapid climate change coincide to pose serious threats to the future;
3. Documenting the effects of different population growth scenarios on climate change projections;
4. Updating the critical report Why Population Matters to address linkages between population dynamics and global issues; and
5. Assessing resilience to climate change and threats to progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This work will contribute considerably to the debate around climate change, according to Coen: “With our research-communications-advocacy model, PAI can add to the evidence base, communicate findings and advocate for change among important audiences. In 2008, the topic of population must be inserted into the scientific and political discourse on climate change. Family planning and reproductive health are important interventions to bolster resilience and to contribute to reducing the impact of climate change on the planet’s most vulnerable citizens.”

As part of PAI’s increased commitment, Dr. Leiwen Jiang, a top population and climate researcher, will be joining PAI as Senior Demographer on June 1. He will build upon PAI’s decades-long research population and the environment, developing strong evidence-based advocacy on climate change issues related to global population.

Dr. Jiang has been a co-investigator on population and climate research with Brian O’Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and will continue to partner with climate change experts on behalf of PAI. Dr. Jiang has conducted research and taught on population-environment studies for more than nine years in the United States, Europe, China and other Asian countries.

Dr. Jiang’s most recent work focused on population and household projections for the United States, China and Europe; the impact of population dynamics on energy consumption, land use and climate change in the US, China, India and other major regions of the world; household projection modeling; population migration and land degradation in Xinjiang, China; energy transition in China and India; and projections of households and housing demand in China.

“We are excited to have such an accomplished researcher join us to investigate the complex relationship between population and climate and to help advance PAI’s advocacy on this issue. Leiwen is one of the few people in the world who conduct this specialized research on the linkages between greenhouse gas emissions, population, and demographic factors,” said Karen Hardee, PAI’s Vice President of Research. 

Dr. Jiang holds a BA and MA from Peking University in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Demography and Environment Sciences from The University of Amsterdam. He conducted post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and was also an associate professor at Peking University, a visiting scholar at Indiana University, the Vienna Institute of Demography of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the University of Amsterdam. Before joining PAI, he was an assistant professor of research at the Watson Institute for International Studies and a faculty associate of the Population Study and Training Center at Brown University, as well as a guest researcher at the Population and Climate Change Program of International Institute for Applied System Dynamics Analyses (IIASA).

Dr. Jiang has an extensive publications record and his work has been funded by the Wellcome Trust Foundation, the World Bank, the China Natural Science Foundation, and a National Key Research Project in China.

Dr. Leiwen Jiang can be reached at 202.557.3406 or ljiang@popact.org (as of June 1, 2008) and will work out of PAI’s offices at 1300 19^th Street, NW, Second floor, Washington, DC 20036.

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Population Action International works to improve individual well-being and preserve global resources by mobilizing political and financial support for population, family planning, and reproductive health policies and programs.