No tomorrow for many, unless we stop..! UN calls for urgent rethink as resource use skyrockets..!

New Delhi, March 12: “Rapid growth in extraction of materials is the chief culprit in climate change and biodiversity loss – a challenge that will only worsen unless the world urgently undertakes a systemic reform of resource use”, called the UN Environment Assembly releasing the Global Resource Outlook 2019 publication.

 

 

The report being prepared by the International Resource Panel, examines the trends in natural resources and their corresponding consumption patterns since the 1970s to support policymakers in strategic decision making and transitioning to a sustainable economy.

“The Global Resources Outlook shows that we are ploughing through this planet’s finite resources as if there is no tomorrow, causing climate change and biodiversity loss along the way,” said Joyce Msyua, Acting Executive Director of UN Environment. “Frankly, there will be no tomorrow for many people unless we stop”, she added.

Over the past five decades, the population worldwide has doubled and that the global domestic product has increased four times. The report finds that, in the same period, annual global extraction of material and resources have grown from 27 billion tonnes to 92 billion tonnes. However it is estimated that the same will double again by 2060 on current trends.

“The extraction and processing of materials, fuels and food make up about half of total global greenhouse gas emissions and more than 90 per cent of biodiversity loss and water stress”, read the report adding that the land-use changes had caused a loss of global species of approximately 11 per cent by 2010.