London, June 2011

The world must curb soaring use of natural resources to prevent consumption from reaching ruinous levels by 2050, according to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The decoupling of human well-being from resource consumption is at the heart of this requirement.

The 20th century was a time of remarkable progress for human civilization. Driven by scientific and technological advances, the extraction of construction materials grew by a factor of 34, ores and minerals by a factor of 27, fossil fuels by a factor of 12, and biomass by a factor of 3.6, according to Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts From Economic Growth; a new report by UNEP’s International Resource Panel.

Resource use totals about 47 to 59 billion tonnes a year (2005 figure) according to the study which lumps everything together by weight from oil and gold ore to sand or cement used in construction. Without restrictions, that could leap to 140 billion by 2050. Trade itself is of growing concern, as internationally traded materials increased from 5.4 billion tons (5.4 Gt) in 1970 to 19 billion tons (19 Gt) in 2005, complicating the application of decoupling by obscuring responsibility for it.

VIEW HERE