Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2024, Vol. 22

Climate change represents one of the most pressing challenges for societies in the 21st century. This special issue of the Vienna Yearbook of Population Research (VYPR) brings together interdisciplinary contributions from 51 authors to explore the demographic dimensions of climate change. In many ways, human populations are at the center of the current climate crisis. On the one hand, anthropogenic forces are responsible for the unprecedented changes in the climate system that are currently being observed. It is the burning of fossil fuels that has significantly increased greenhouse gas concentrations, driving global warming and altering natural climate patterns. On the other hand, human populations are also profoundly affected by these changes, as they are facing increased risks from extreme weather events, rising sea levels and shifting ecosystems, which, in turn, impact livelihoods, food and water security, and health and well-being. This special issue provides a comprehensive overview of both the role of population as a driving force of climate change and the significance of its impacts in the areas of health and mortality, migration, and fertility and reproductive behaviors. In addition to 10 research articles, the special issue features seven debate articles by leading scholars, who provide reflections on the climate-population nexus and the role of demographic science in climate change mitigation. Demography offers a wide range of perspectives and methodological tools to understand and address the climate-population nexus, including in the areas of health and population data, mathematical and statistical modeling, and projections. We advocate for a holistic research perspective that incorporates issues related to increasing climate risks into demographic thinking, and vice versa. A thorough understanding of the intricate relationship between populations, population dynamics and climate change is necessary for the development of effective and equitable mitigation and adaptation strategies that address both global and local challenges over time.

Schlagworte: Climate change, Climate impacts, Demography, population, Environment

Climate change is among the most urgent challenges of our time. While often considered a problem for the natural and physical sciences, the humanities and social scien-ces have made equally important interventions into research on the reciprocal relationship between humans and our climate. Because demography occupies the intersection of the natural and social sciences, and because it deals specifically with rates of change in social and natural processes, we believe it can make valuable contributions to the pressing impe-ratives of understanding and addressing climate change and mitigating the harms it is already visiting on the world’s most vulnerable people. We also believe that climate change may afford demographers an opportunity to expand our capacity to think about time and space at finer scales, and to examine the relationships among the core demographic pro-cesses – mortality, fertility and migration – which have typically been considered in isola-tion from one another. Yet responsibly leveraging climate change to advance demography, and leveraging demography to advance climate science and policy, require a cognizance of history that will assist demographers and those who use our analyses in avoiding the repli-cation of past harms and, we hope, the invention of new ones. Understanding the history of demography and of population-environment thought more broadly can help us challenge assumptions that have not served science or policy well in the past – such as the assumption that larger or faster-growing populations necessarily put more pressure on the environment, independent of structural conditions – and consider alternative theoretical framings that might lead to better scientific models and policy solutions.

Schlagworte: Climate change, population, Demography, History, Environment

With the global population surpassing eight billion in November 2022, I revisit the debate over incorporating population strategies in climate change mitigation efforts. In this perspective, I review diverse literature, questioning the efficacy of fertility choices for reducing carbon emissions and examining the moral equivalence of procreative and consumption decisions. I explore historical and contemporary debates, from Malthusian concerns to modern neo-Malthusian and demographic revisionist views. While larger populations generally lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, I argue that reducing population growth is insufficient as a standalone climate strategy due to demographic momentum, and because it disregards existing disparities and structural inequalities. Instead, I emphasize the need for justice-centred approaches, advocating for voluntary, rights-based family planning, women’s empowerment and equitable resource access and distribution to address both population dynamics and affluent consumption patterns. My perspective calls for integrating ethical, cultural and justice considerations to balance environmental sustainability with human needs.

Schlagworte: population, Climate change, Procreation, Women’s rights

As the global population hit eight billion in 2022 and climate change-induced extreme events have become more visible worldwide, there has been renewed public interest in the impact of population growth on climate change. This has also sparked a debate about the role of population control policies as a key strategy to curb global warming. This essay argues that the relationship between population dynamics and climate change is highly complex, and that having specific background knowledge could be beneficial for participating in this debate. To this end, this essay presents three points that readers may wish to consider when forming their judgements: (1) the role of demographers in assessing how human population impacts climate change; (2) the importance of acknowledging the demographic heterogeneity and complexity of the relationship between human populations and climate change; and (3) the disparities in resource consumption and the resulting emissions in the context of climate justice.

Schlagworte: Climate justice, Demographic heterogeneity, IPAT, population growth, Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)

The world is currently facing a climate crisis with associated health and plane-tary consequences, and human activity is central to this crisis. Debates on the relationship between population and climate change provide a mixed picture, ranging from demonstrat-ing a clear link between large populous countries and greenhouse gas emissions to pointing to spurious associations between population growth and climate change. We submit that as the interaction between population dynamics and climate change is complex, a nuanced approach to climate mitigation and adaptation strategies is needed. Finding a solution to the climate crisis requires a concerted effort by all nations, whether rich or poor. While there is an urgent need for more industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, poorer countries with fast-growing populations must do their part in climate mitigation even as they pursue economic development. Addressing intertwined issues of population growth, economic development and climate change necessitates purposeful measures and long-term commitments to a world in harmony with nature.

Schlagworte: population growth, Climate mitigation, Greenhouse gases emissions

Contemporary demographic patterns differ widely between countries. The combined trajectories of population growth and the climate crisis will lead to a redistribution of people on the planet, with urbanization offering both promise and risk for efforts to mitigate climate change. While all individuals contribute to emissions, they do not do so in the same ways, and nor are they affected proportionately. In this paper, we argue for a more evidence-based use of demographic data to bolster the effectiveness of climate change mitigation and adaptation to reduce both population risks and vulnerabilities, and underscore the important role of rights-based, people-centred population policies in climate action.

Schlagworte: Demography, climate change adaptation, vulnerability, Mitigation, Urbanization, Population policies, Population dynamics

Population mobility and immobility are depicted prominently in the climate change adaptation literature either as maladaptation, or failure to adapt, or as a key strategy for adaptation in place or elsewhere. On the other hand, the relevance of population mobility in the context of climate change mitigation has not been highlighted to the same extent as, for example, population growth and fertility. And yet, as the outcomes of people moving around – sometimes in unexpected ways because of local combinations of policies, contexts and shocks – population mobility patterns, trends and levels could both facilitate and constrain climate change mitigation efforts. In this brief note, I suggest that climate change mitigation strategies and actions need to take into account their potential interactions with population mobility because it is a key component of population growth, population distribution and urbanisation trends, as well as a potential contributor to behavioural change.

Schlagworte: climate change mitigation, Population mobility, Migration policies, Mitigation policies, Population dynamics

Our thinking about future trends in both population and climate change has traditionally been dominated by the view of smooth trajectories towards ultimate stabilization. But reality turns out to be different: climate warming will not stop at the Paris goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius, but is expected to overshoot, and will therefore need to be addressed through negative emissions (taking carbon out of the atmosphere) later in the century; similarly, fertility decline has not stopped at the replacement level, and instead seems to be falling to lower and lower levels, with nobody knowing when it will stop and whether there will be an upturn. In both cases, societies will need to adapt to rather extreme discontinuities, rather than being able to count on smooth stabilization. Furthermore, the reality that climate change overshooting will require serious mitigative action during the second half of this century brings alternative demographic trends back into the picture as potentially relevant factors in mitigation, since alternative fertility and education trends in the near future will take decades to be reflected in changing population sizes and structures, including in human capital.

Schlagworte: Climate change, Fertility decline, Stabilization, Overshooting, Mitigation, Adaption

Understanding the relationship between extreme temperatures and health among older adults is of paramount importance for public health in ageing societies. This study aims to enhance our understanding of the impact of extreme temperatures on morbidity, i.e. the risk of being hospitalised, using medications for heart conditions, and experiencing the onset of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) among older adults in Europe (65+ years old) using five waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2004–2015). It also explores heterogeneity in this impact depending on an array of factors that affect exposure and vulnerability to climate, including geographical location, gender, age, educational level, having a partner/child and living in an urban or a rural area. Results from individual fixed-effects models show that extremely cold temperatures increase the risk of being hospitalised and suffering from CVDs, while heat exposure has no noteworthy effect. Broken down by geographical location, the results indicate that one additional extremely cold day influences the risk of hospitalisation in the coldest and the warmest European regions, while extreme heat influences this risk in the warmest European regions. Finally, the oldest old and low educated individuals appear to be the most vulnerable social groups. The study concludes by discussing the advantages and the limitations of using survey data to study climate and health, and the strategies suggested by the relevant literature to prevent temperature-related illness.

Schlagworte: Old age, Extreme temperatures, Morbidity, Hospitalisation, European regions, Heterogeneity

The 2010 summer heatwave in European Russia led to a notable increase in mortality due to extreme heat and associated wildfires. However, the diverse settlement patterns and the uneven impact of the heatwave in European Russia have left many geographical aspects of this event unexplored. For instance, the variations in excess mortality between major cities and smaller urban and rural areas remain unclear. According to our findings, during the 27–33 weeks of 2010, the total number of excess deaths was estimated at 56.0, with nearly 20% of them concentrated in Moscow. The age-standardized mortality rate in cities with more than one million inhabitants exceeded the expected values by 52% during the heatwave, while the excess mortality rate in rural areas was only 17%. The geographical area experiencing the highest excess mortality rate aligned with the zone of the greatest heatwave extent, as indicated by deviations from the climatic norm in temperatures and other measures of thermal stress. The risk of death from this increase in thermal stress more accurately represented by the Heat Index was found to be substantially higher in larger cities of 500,000 or more inhabitants, with the risk of death being especially high in major cities. Notably, air pollution was not found to be a significant modifier of excess mortality. It is important to note that the results obtained may have been influenced by the use of raster-based data from climate reanalysis, which may be expected to underrepresent local urban heat island effects, and consequently to underestimate risk exposure in urban areas.

Schlagworte: Heatwaves, Climate change, excess mortality, Rural-urban disparity

Climate change has been recognized as an important issue in public health, with particular concerns being raised about the effects of heat and cold extremes on health,and about seasonal changes over the year and their associations with increased mortality and hospitalizations. This paper explored the relationship between physiological equivalent temperature (PET) and cardiovascular and respiratory hospital admissions in Novi Sad (Serbia) with the aim of assessing the impact of urban outdoor thermal conditions on health. Analysis was performed using daily data on cardiovascular and respiratory hospital admissions by gender covering the period from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017. For the same period, PET was calculated using data from two urban meteorological network stations. The association between PET and hospital admissions was examined using a generalized additive model (GAM) combined with a distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM).The study found a non-linear relationship between PET and cardiovascular and respiratory hospital admissions, with a larger impact during the cold period of the year. The findings also indicated that under conditions of high PET, the cumulative RR increased for cardiovascular admissions (for males) and respiratory admissions (for females). People with pre-existing respiratory diseases were found to be more vulnerable under conditions of extremely low and moderately low PET, with a greater effect at lag 0–14 days. By contrast,for people with cardiovascular diseases, low PET was linked to a decrease in hospital admissions, with the risk being lowest at lag 0 and 0–3 days.

Schlagworte: Hospital admission, Physiological equivalent temperature, Cardiovascular diseases, Respiratory diseases, Serbia

Climate conditions, such as ambient temperatures, play a crucial role in infants' vulnerability to infectious diseases. However, little is known about how climate conditions, such as temperatures and seasonality, affect infectious disease mortality among infants inhigh mortality settings. The aim of our study was to investigate the association between cause-specific infant mortality and ambient temperatures and seasonality. We applied a retrospective study design using parish register data from Sweden covering the 1868–1892 period in combination with daily temperature data. Mortality due to water- and foodborne diseases, airborne infectious diseases and other causes was modelled as a function of temperature exposure in the previous 14 days using distributed lagged non-linear models. We found that airborne infectious disease mortality was not related to cold temperatures, but rather to seasonality. The summer peaks in mortality due to water- and foodborne infections were associated with high temperatures, and not with seasonality. The increased vulnerability of infants to infectious diseases at high temperatures is a significant future risk, given that global temperatures are projected to rise in the coming decades.

Schlagworte: Temperature, Seasonality, Infectious disease, infant mortality, Retrospective study

Environmental stressors and natural disasters are changing the physical landscapes in many countries worldwide. In this paper, we ask whether and how erosion affects internal and international migration in Bangladesh. Building on prior studies, we use data from 3,600 households in 18 research sites to investigate how erosion in tidal and river channels is related to the risk of making a first internal or international trip, net of extreme weather conditions and other relevant attributes. Findings reveal that the relationship between erosion and the likelihood of making a first domestic or international trip is moderated by livelihood type and landownership. As erosion worsens, the odds of making a first domestic trip rise for non-agricultural non-landowning household heads and decline for landowners working in agriculture. Estimated lifetime probabilities of making a first domestic trip are higher than those of making a first international trip, with non-agricultural non-landowners having the highest probabilities and agricultural landowners having the lowest. Together, the evidence suggests that shifts in physical landscapes, especially erosion, are tightly linked to out-migration through ties to land.

Schlagworte: migration, Erosion, International migration, Bangladesh, River channels

Robust empirical evidence on the potential causal linkages between environmental change, conflict and migration is scarce. We evaluate this relationship in the context of internal migration in Colombia for the period from 2000 to 2005. Using municipality level data in a gravity model that considers the issue of endogenous selection regarding both the outbreak of conflicts and the existence of non-zero migration flows, we establish an empirical causal link between droughts, conflict and migration. Our results show a positive relationship between the severity of droughts and the likelihood of conflicts, as well as between conflicts and human mobility, suggesting an indirect effect of climate on internal migration in Colombia.

Schlagworte: migration, Environmental change, Conflict, SPEI, Endogenous selection, Gravity model

The region of West Asia and North Africa has not only been termed a “hotspot” region for the adverse impact of climate change in light of extreme temperature increases. Several countries have also experienced protracted humanitarian crises and civil wars in the last two decades, such as those in Syria, Yemen and Libya. The vulnerability of these populations makes advancing our understanding of how climate change may impact migration patterns in the region a matter of urgency. This study examines whether extreme temperatures influence bilateral forced migration between countries within West Asia and North Africa through their potential to increase armed conflict. The findings suggest that extreme temperatures in two consecutive years, defined as the upper 10% of the country-specific annual mean temperature distribution, cumulatively increase the probability of armed conflict by 42.5% in the following year ( p = 0.07). Armed conflict is strongly associated with an increase in asylum flows, by 45.8 percentage points ( p = 0.00), and there is a weak indication that conflict mediates the relationship between extreme heat and asylum flows. This explorative study is the first to apply a regional displacement perspective to the climate-conflict-migration nexus in West Asia and North Africa. The results underline the importance of taking contextual factors into account in the analysis of environmental migration.

Schlagworte: Climate change, Conflict, Forced migration, MENA

This paper advances our understanding of the relationship between climate change and ideal fertility in Sahelian West Africa by exploring sources of variation in that relationship. Using an integrated dataset of Demographic and Health Surveys with monthly rainfall and temperature data, the analyses model dimensions of prospective ideal fertility for young, childless men and women in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Temperature, particularly in the arid climate zone, is shown to have a positive effect on ideal fertility. Landowning insulates individuals from adjusting their fertility ideals in response to change. Gender-stratified models reveal that under hotter conditions, women have a higher ideal number of children but their ideal gender composition remains relatively balanced, while men do not change their ideal number of children but show a preference for more sons. The increase in ideal fertility in response to weather change may be understood as an increasing need to generate human capital to meet the increased labour demands that climate change brings over both the short and the long term.

Schlagworte: Temperature, Precipitation, Sahel, West Africa, Gender composition, Ideal family size

We theoretically explore the interrelations between population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T) for various environmental impacts (I) using IPAT-type modelling. To illustrate the differences across environmental dimensions, climate and land use impacts are modelled. We use middle-of-the-road projections for population and per capita income and different forecasting methods for technology, including extrapolations of historical trends, models based on stochastic IPAT (STIRPAT) and predictions in the literature. The different approaches are compared within the IPAT framework. We also explore the consequences of alternative trajectories for P, A and T, and we discuss the implications of these trajectories for reaching global goals based on our modelling. The findings are analysed in light of three theories in environmental sociology, each of which places a different emphasis on the different components of IPAT. We argue that the large amount of technological mitigation assumed in many forecasts makes affluence and population relatively irrelevant for climate change. However, we also consider it likely that both factors will be determinants of land use impact in the 21st century.

Schlagworte: IPAT, Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), Green growth, Human ecology, STIRPAT model, Land use impact

While dynamic water security models related to food and livelihood security have advanced significantly in recent decades, the inclusion of demographic variables in these models is often limited to merely population growth. As many countries have either completed or are in the process of completing the demographic transition, population growth alone may no longer be the predominant demographic variable influencing water security models. Therefore, there is a discernible need for more comprehensive water security models to consider the simultaneous impact of various demographic variables on different aspects of water security. Inspired by the contemporary environmental demography perspectives, we introduce a generic integrated framework for integrated water-population interactions (IWPI) which explores the overlooked impacts of demographic transitions on different aspects of water security. Demographic shifts can impact food and water consumption and agricultural employment. Recognizing these dynamics is essential as countries advance through demographic transitions and face mounting pressures on water resources. The Integrated Water-Population Interaction (IWPI) framework was implemented in Iran through the Water-Population System Dynamics (WPSD) model. The model shows that population size, household composition and urbanization significantly affect domestic water consumption. It also reveals how changes in educational and occupational structures impact livelihood security and food self-sufficiency under water constraints. We introduce a novel population metric for water security assessment in Iran, offering policy-makers a tool to assess and address water insecurities that can affect the population in different ways. Our findings recommend realistic food self-sufficiency targets, flexible water resource planning and policies that integrate population dynamics with water, food and livelihood security to ensure sustainable outcomes in Iran.

Schlagworte: demographic transition, Food security, Livelihood security, Sustainable development, System dynamics modelling, Iran