Home NewsLimit families to two children 'to combat climate change'
GPs should tell parents not to have more than two children to help in the battle against climate change, according to doctors.
By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor
Last Updated: 4:28AM BST 25 Jul 2008
The world's population increases by 1.5m each week and babies born in the UK will use more greenhouse gases during their lifetime than those born in the developing world.
Two doctors, writing in the British Medical Journal, suggest that doctors should talk to their patients about climate change and encourage them to think about the consequences of having a big family.
Investing in contraception would help in the fight against climate change, they argue.
John Guillebaud, emeritus professor of family planning and reproductive health, at University College London and GP Dr Pip Hayes, from Exeter wrote: "Unplanned pregnancy, especially in teenagers, is a problem for the planet, as well as the individual concerned.
"But what about planned pregnancies? Should we now explain to UK couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less child than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren?
"We must not put pressure on people, but by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone (and by their own example), doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high carbon cars."
They said it is not necessary to resort to the sort of draconian measures used by countries like India and China and by improving access to contraception, the number of unplanned pregnancies would be reduced.
The authors quoted examples such as Iran where the average family size reduced from 5.5 to two, the level needed to simply maintain the current population, within 15 years after a policy was introduced to teach all couples about family planning and contraception before they married.
They also pointed out that The Optimum Population Trust calculates that 'each new UK birth will be responsible for 160 times more greenhouse gas emissions . . . than a new birth in Ethiopia'.
Prof Martin Parry, co-chair, of a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: "There are lots of good reasons for having a sensible population policy but climate change is not necessarily an additional strong reason for reducing population.
"The main cause of climate change has been dirty development. What we need to do if focus on improving our standard of living by clean development and that can be done without substantial changes in population policy."
