Strong action needed on resource efficiency
High-profile report shows resource-efficiency policy can help in tackling climate change, while increasing global economic output.
Ambitious action on climate change and rigorous resource-efficiency policy could make a significant impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report lead-authored by researchers from the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR) for the United Nations Environment Programme’s International Resource Panel.
Commissioned by the G7 group of governments, the report points with optimism towards the future, suggesting that increased resource efficiency, combined with ambitious climate policy, could both reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 63% from 2015 levels by 2050 and increase employment and economic output globally.
Nick Hughes, co-lead author of the report, says that regulations promoting eco-design, recycling and remanufacturing, plus incentives to invest in resource-saving labour are key to generating change and making a significant impact on global resource consumption.
He notes that governments have a crucial role to play in “bringing together and supporting the new coalitions of actors and supply chains that will be required to significantly increase resource efficiency”. The report also suggests that, on current trends, we are on course for an alarming increase in natural resource extraction from 85 to 186 billion tonnes by 2050. This could be reduced by up to 28% if the report’s recommendations are followed.
Professor Paul Ekins, ISR’s Director and lead author, presented the report’s Summary for Policy Makers at the G7 Environmental Minister’s meeting in Toyama, Japan in May 2016.
Read the report: ‘Resource Efficiency: Potential and Economic Implications’
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