New Data Gives Clearer Picture of How Quickly We’re Consuming Natural Resources

New Data Gives Clearer Picture of How Quickly We’re Consuming Natural Resources
Top Left: (Fré Sonneveld/Unsplash.com/Public Domain) Bottom Left: (Aleksandar Radovanovic/Unsplash.com/Public Domain) Right: Christopher Sardegna/Unsplash.com/Public Domain
Tara MacIsaac
Updated:

The worldwide use of natural material resources, such as fossil fuels and metals, has tripled over the past 40 years. And it will triple again in the next 40, according to a United Nations report released July 20.

The data gathered in the report could add a level of precision to currently vague and immeasurable sustainability goals.

The United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were drafted last year, setting targets for 2030. Some of the targets are relatively precise and easy to measure, such as ensuring no one in the world earns less than $1.25 a day.

But many of the targets have been criticized for being vague, including those related to natural resources, production, and consumption. For example, one of the targets reads, “By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.”

Another states: “Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production.”

With the base measurements provided by the report, countries that have signed onto the SDGs may better track their progress and set concrete, number-based targets.

The Numbers

A lumber yard near Clinton Correctional Facility outside Dannemora, N.Y., on on June 18, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
A lumber yard near Clinton Correctional Facility outside Dannemora, N.Y., on on June 18, 2015. Andrew Burton/Getty Images