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Birth control can offer 'solution' to climate change - Cardinal Turkson

His comment comes on the back of criticisms surrounding birth control in relation to climate change, which has long been controversial within the Catholic Church.

Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson

A Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson has indicated that birth control could help alleviate some of the impacts of climate change.

Speaking in an interview with the BBC in Paris, Cardinal Turkson said the Church had never been against natural family planning.

"This has been talked about, and the Holy Father on his trip back from the Philippines also invited people to some form of birth control, because the church has never been against birth control and people spacing out births and all of that. So yes, it can offer a solution," he said.

"Having more mouths to feed is a challenge for us to be productive also, which is one of the key issues being treated over here, the cultivation and production of food, and its distribution.

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"So yes it engages us in food security management, so we ensure that everybody is fed and all of that. The amount of population that is critical for the realisation of this is still something we need to discover, yet the Holy Father has also called for a certain amount of control of birth," he added.

According to the UN, the global population of 7 billion people is expected to grow to 9.7bn by the middle of the century.

But, efforts to limit family size in developing countries have been perceived as a form of imperialism.

Cardinal Turkson believes a strong agreement at the Paris climate talks would be critically important in tackling the causes of the problem.

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