UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The world could consume an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and wood-based fuels annually by 2050 — three times its current appetite, a new U.N. report warned Thursday
The report said the world is already running out of cheap and high quality sources of essential materials such as oil, cooper and gold which require ever-rising volumes of fossil fuels and fresh water to produce. The overall demand may triple, it said, because of population growth, high levels of consumption in industrialized countries and increased demand for material goods.
The U.N. Environment Program said citizens in richer developed countries consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita, and as much as 40 or more tons. By comparison, it said, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year.
The report said ways must be found to do more with less.
It called for an urgent "rethink" of the links between the use of resources and economic prosperity buttressed by massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation to at least freeze per capita consumption in wealthy countries and help developing nations follow a more sustainable path in using resources.
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said "decoupling" the economic growth rate from the rate of natural resource consumption "makes sense on all the economic, social and environmental dials."
Steiner said people believe that damage to the environment is the price paid for economic progress.
"However, we cannot, and need not, continue to act as if this trade-off is inevitable," he said.
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