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State of the World Population 2009 UNPF Report
This year's United Nations Population Fund report argues that reproductive health care, including family planning, and gender relations could influence the future course of climate change and affect how humanity adapts to rising seas, worsening storms and severe droughts. Women, especially impoverished women in developing countries, bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, but have so far been largely overlooked in the debate about how to address problems of rising seas, droughts, melting glaciers and extreme weather, the report concludes. The report shows that investments that empower women and girls—particularly education and health—bolster economic development and reduce poverty and have a beneficial impact on climate. Girls with more education, for example, tend to have smaller and healthier families as adults. Women with access to reproductive health services, including family planning, have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse-gas emissions in the long run. Visit http://www.unfpa.org/public/publications/pid/4353