Global resource use is exploding

Canada stands out for devouring resources in a world that is consuming minerals, ore, fossil fuel and biomass at an unsustainable rate, according to a recent United Nations report.

It warns that humanity will use 140 billion tonnes of the four key resources a year by mid-century -"three times the current appetite" -unless people get much smarter and efficient about using resources.

Total global resource use soared from six billion tonnes in 1900 to 49 billion tonnes in 2000 and is now running at close to 59 billion tonnes, the United Nations Environment Program's resource panel said Thursday.

"Global resource consumption is exploding," Ernst von Weizsäcker, the panel's co-chair said in a statement. "It's not a trend that is in any way sustainable."

The panel says consumption for each person in developed countries is now about 16 tonnes of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year -with Canada near the front of the pack at 25 tonnes a person.

By comparison, the average person in India consumes four tonnes a year. The world is beginning to run out of cheap and readily accessible oil, copper and gold, says the panel, stressing "humanity can and must do more with less."

"It is time to recognize the limits to the natural resources available to support human development and economic growth," the panel says.

It calls for a 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."

"Innovation, even radical innovation, will be required," says the panel that released its report Thursday at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York.

"Over the coming decades, the level of resources used by each and every person may need to fall to between five and six tonnes," Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, writes in the forward to the 152-page report.

"Some developing countries are still below this level whereas others, such as India, are now on average at four tonnes per capita and in some developed economies, Canada for example, the figure is around 25 tonnes."

National consumption rates per capita are calculated by dividing a country's extraction and use of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass by its population.

Canada's high consumption rate reflects the country's heavy dependence on production and export of agricultural products, minerals and fossil fuels.

"It is not necessarily a bad thing to export resources," says Mark Swilling, the report's lead author, who specializes in sustainable development at South Africa's Stellenbosch University.

But he stressed in an interview from New York that countries such as Canada that rely heavily on resource extraction and exports would be wise to take some of the profits and invest heavily in innovation and technologies.

"That sets you up for the future," Swilling said.

If humanity continues on the current path, the panel predicts that 140 billion tonnes of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass a year would be needed by 2050.

This "represents an unsustainable future in terms of both resource use and emissions, probably exceeding all possible measures of available resources and assessments of limits to the capacity to absorb impacts," it says.

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