Project Team
Student(s)
Gabrielle Barros Vardanega
Environmental Justice
New York University
Niklas Piringer
Geography with Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Mentor(s)
Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Project Video
Project Abstract
Our research is focused on how climate change affects the population dynamics of households and communities located in Sub-Saharan Africa. Considerable attention has been given to the impacts of population growth on climate change, with the implication that climate change mitigation will require reductions in population size. However, little research has been dedicated to understanding the inverse: the influence of climate change on fertility. Estimates of climate effects on fertility can help refine models of future population growth and greenhouse gas emissions. Previous studies have indicated that human fertility is susceptible to climate variability, but the evidence is fairly limited to date. Our research aims to test this expectation using previously-unused data. To this end, we access census microdata from twelve Sub-Saharan countries and link these data with high-resolution climate data from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) time series. We estimate the statistical association between exposure to climate anomalies and the probability of recent childbearing. We further pair this analysis with models of related outcomes, such as household size and structure, which allows for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms linking climate change and fertility. Preliminary results indicate that hotter and wetter conditions are associated with a reduced probability of recent childbearing. Our supplementary models show that these changes result in reduced household size. Together, these results suggest that population growth may slow under future warming, thereby reducing the contribution of population to emissions in the coming decades. The feedback loops between climate change and demographic developments highlighted by our research are key for successfully drawing down emissions.
Project Poster
https://sites.psu.edu/climatedrawdown2020/files/formidable/6/Drawdown-Final-Poster.pdf