Education, Fertility Decline, and Climate Change in India

Education is a major catalyst for human development, and regarded as the key to ensuring environmental sustainability. Existing studies suggest that education and family planning services correlate with each other in affecting fertility and population growth and composition which has important implications on climate change mitigation options and adaptation responses. The paper uses the IIASA multistate human capital projection model to simulate the Indian population growth under different education scenarios, and compare the outputs with the results of population projections under the scenarios of preventing unwanted fertility of Indian women through providing family planning and reproductive health services. Based on statistical analysis of national household survey data, we explore the different income and consumption patterns among Indian population by different education categories and by other demographic characteristics, such as age and household size. Adopting the NCAR integrated assessment model PET and use the results from previous two parts as input, we simulate future energy consumption and carbon emissions under different education scenarios and decompose the overall effects of education in India on emissions into the impacts through affecting population growth, economic growth, or consumption preferences.