Key drivers for unsustainable resource use - categories, effects and policy pointers

摘要

Prevailing resource use patterns of the global socio-industrial metabolism are unsustainable. An increasing number of people globally require ever more materials (including energy carriers), land and water for rising living standards and lifestyles converging towards western, industrialised patterns. Therefore, these resources will continue becoming both scarcer and depleted, while environmental impacts associated with their consumption, e.g. run-away climate change, will continue to rise. For effective resource policies, drivers for such unsustainable resource use and their effects need to be better understood and mapped.