LONDON / STATE OF THE WORLDS POPULATION LAUNCH

A United Nations report urges policymakers to heed the role of women - who make up the majority of the poor - in combating climate change. UNFPA

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:03:15
• Production Date: 18 November 2009
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: ENVIRONMENT; POPULATION; POPULATION DYNAMICS
• Geographic Subject: UNITED NATIONS STABILIZATION MISSION IN HAITI - MINUSTAH
• MAMS Id: U091118b

Description

STORY: LONDON / STATE OF THE WORLDS POPULATION LAUNCH
TRT: 3.15
SOURCE: UNFPA / UNICEF / MINUSTAH / UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 18 NOVEMBER 2009, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM/ FILE

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, Royal Society headquarters
2. Med shot, sign on door glass
3. Wide shot, press conference
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA:
“Our 2009 State of the World Population Report is called ‘Facing a Changing World, Women, Population and Climate’. And this report calls special attention to women and vulnerable populations and response to climate change. It points out that climate change is not just about technology, it is a human problem brought about by human activity. People are affected by climate change, people need to adapt to it and only people can stop it.”
5. Close up, hands going through report
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA:
“Right now the carbon footprints of the poorest billion people on earth, is a mere three percent of the worlds total carbon footprint. And it is the poor who will bear the disproportionate brunt of our changing climate to which they have not contributed. For many people especially for women in poor countries, climate change is here and now.”
7. Cutaway, reporters
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA:
“Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change even though they contribute the least to it. Poor women don’t take airplanes; poor women don’t drive cars. As often as not, they can’t find a vehicle to get them to the hospital if they had difficult delivering a baby.”
9. Cutaway, reporters
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA:
“Helping women to make their own decisions about family seize would protect their health, make their life easier, help put their countries on a sustainable path towards development and ensure lower green house emissions ion the long run.”
11. Med shot, reporters
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, UNFPA:
“All nations and people have the right to development and all countries are challenged to develop in ways that are socially equitable and environmentally sound.”

FILE – UNICEF - 22 JANUARY 2009, MORONDAVA, MADAGASCAR

13. Various shots, flooded area, women and children carrying personal belongings
14. Various shots, mother and children standing by their tent during flood
15. Tilt down, school with roof
16. Various shots, schools girls

FILE – UNICEF - 17 NOVEMBER 2008, LOKICHOGGIO, KENYA

17. Wide shot, Turkana women and children waiting on line for food
18. Pan left, from Turkana child carrying a baby in barren land to mother and child
19. Med shot, mother and baby
20. Close up, baby
21. Mother and child
22. Close up, child

FILE – MINUSTAH - 3 SEPT 2008, GONAIVES, HAITI

23. Wide shot, woman and children walking through flooded waters
24. Tracking shot, woman carrying bucket on her head walking through flooded streets
25. Wide shot, young woman walking through flooded street
26. Tracking shot, women and young men standing by flooded street

FILE – UNTV - JULY 2009, BOLIVIA, HUAYNA POTOSI

27. Wide shot, Huayna Potosi Glacier melted

FILE - UNFPA - NOVEMBER 2007, BOLIVIA

6. Wide shot, pregnant woman
7. Med shot, woman with baby on her back

Storyline

Climate change strikes it fiercest blow against the poorest, most vulnerable people around the world, according to a United Nations (U.N.) report launched today in London, urging policymakers to heed the role of women – who make up the majority of the poor – in combating climate change.

“Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed the least to it,” said UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid at the launch in the Royal Society of London headquarters.

The U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) report warned that the poor depend more on agriculture for their livelihoods, risking hunger and loss of income when droughts strike, rains become unpredictable and hurricanes move with unprecedented force.

The poor also tend to live in marginal areas, vulnerable to floods, rising seas and storms, noted The State of World Population 2009 UNFPA report, stressing that women bear the disproportionate burden of climate change as they make up the majority of the world’s 1.5 billion people living on less than one dollar a day.
The report contended that the international community’s fight against climate change would be more successful if policies, programs and treaties consider the needs, rights and potential of women.

It spotlighted studies showing women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters, with the gender mortality gap most pronounced where incomes are low and status differences between men and women are high.

The UNFPA report also demonstrated that investment in women and girls – particularly in education and health – boosts economic development, reduces poverty and benefits the environment. It said that girls with more education tend to have smaller and healthier families as adults because access to reproductive health services – including family planning – results in lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse-gas emissions in the long run.