UN concerned economic growth in Asia-Pacific may stress environment

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today said Asia and the Pacific now has more “middle to high income” consumers – those earning more than $7,000 per year – than Western Europe and North America combined, raising concerns that aspirations for further growth may come at a high environmental price.

“It is clear that the Earth's natural ecosystems will not cope with the style of industrialization and over-consumption seen in Europe or North America,” said UNEP Deputy Executive Director Shafqat Kakakhel. “The region’s economic development agenda needs to be coupled with clean production processes and sustainable consumption patterns.”

In a background paper prepared for the Asia Pacific Expert Meeting on Promoting Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, which will open Wednesday in Indonesia, UNEP states that if car ownership in China, India and Indonesia reached the global average, 200 million vehicles would be added to the global fleet.

The paper, “Forging New Paths Towards Sustainable Development,” shows that the new prosperity in Asia and the Pacific is only enjoyed by 26 per cent of the region’s population, and though current consumption pressure per capita is around half that of Western Europe, UNEP is worried that continued growth could have a devastating impact on the environment.

UNEP and the Indonesian Government – in cooperation with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) – organized the meeting to provide the first opportunity for regional governments to identify their priorities for sustainable consumption and production actions.

Some 50 government, business and civil society representatives are expected to prepare an agenda for action, including the need for more government leadership in policy setting, planning, enforcement and education. In addition, they are expected to call for greater responsibility by business for resource efficiency and eco-design and the need for enhanced coalitions and involvement of civic groups.

Development banks are now initiating cleaner production loan programmes and UNEP has helped establish National Cleaner Production Centres in 22 countries as well as the Life Cycle Initiative. This creates historic opportunities for development, UNEP says.

However, UNEP also states that there are obstacles to promoting cleaner production and sustainable consumption in the region, such as the inherent resistance to change, weak capacities to identify solutions, lack of knowledge about benefits and opportunities of the new approaches and scarcity of information and policy frameworks.