Resource Efficiency: Economics and Outlook for Asia and the Pacific

Emerging global uncertainties mean resource efficiency needs to increase rapidly to offset material growth in the Asia-Pacific region while maintaining increased prosperity for the region’s population. This paper published by the UNEP highlights current resource trends, including the region's rapid shift from an agrarian to an industrialised economy, how it has become the highest resource user globally (land, water, energy, minerals), and how the rapid urbanisation, as well as increased income per capita, is causing a surge in the use of resources as well as production of emissions and waste. It provides key messages to policy-makers to restore the region's ecological sustainability if it is to survive in the face of climate change.