Booming resource use driving global environmental crises: UN

Man’s voracious appetite harming planet, says report, calling for consumption to be reduced

- David Fogarty

Humanity's voracious appetite for resources, from food and fuel to metals and gravel, is pushing the planet to its limits by accelerating climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, a major United Nations report says, calling for urgent action for societies to live within their means.

A growing global population, consumer lifestyles and rising demand for food, especially animal-based diets, are the main drivers of the spiralling demand for resources, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says in its Global

Resource Outlook report released on March 1. The Asia-Pacific is a major driver of booming resource use.

"The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution is driven from a crisis of unsustainable consumption and production. We must work with nature, instead of merely exploiting it," said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen.

The report looks at the consumption of biomass, such as agriculture and forestry, fossil fuels, metal ores and non-metallic minerals, such as gravel, sand and clay.

Material resource use since 1970 has grown from 30 billion tonnes to a projected 106.6 billion tonnes in 2024 - or from 23kg to 39kg of materials used on average per person per day. Over the past 20 years, rising affluence explains 40 per cent of the global increase in material extraction, while population growth contributed to 27 per cent, the report says.