I went to a TED talk at UNGA week a few years ago, and the presenter talked about various things that can be done to limit climate change. At the top of the list was women's education/empowerment. This got a lot of applause from the audience, who were excited to clap for preventing climate change and empowering women at the same time.

The presenter did briefly mention the reason that these two laudable goals coincide, which is that women who are empowered and educated have fewer children. I don't think the presenter would have gotten quite so much applause if he had said "the number one thing we can do to prevent climate change is to make sure women in developing countries don't reproduce quite so much". And to be sure, he wasn't saying we should just fund birth control and abortions — he was framing that as a result of educating and empowering women.

But it's no coincidence that the Gates Foundation has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to their Family Planning initiative in Africa. [1]

So it may not be in the headlines, but the UN and others are surely aware of the impact of population growth.

1: https://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gates-foundation-com...