Welcome to the 31st session of the International Resource Panel (IRP), hosted at UNEP’s Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya – the environmental capital of the world. Congratulations on completing the second edition of the Global Resources Outlook, which will be launched next week during the Sixth United Nations Environment Assembly. My thanks to the scientists, IRP co-chairs and steering committee for the long hours and deep thought they put in.
This publication is an incisive and revealing look at how the extraction, processing, consumption and discarding of resources is driving the triple planetary crisis – the crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature and biodiversity loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste. The science this panel has delivered stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside other influential work, such as the Emissions Gap and Global Environment Outlook series.
Equally, the report aligns with many of the resolutions before the Assembly, such as sustainable and responsibly securing the metals and minerals needed for the energy transition. Your Global Material Flows Database is mentioned by members states as critical to measuring progress on decoupling – for example, in the resolution on circular economy.
The Global Resource Outlook 2024 makes it clear that moving to sustainable and responsible resource use and consumption will be essential to creating a just and liveable planet for all. Reducing the resource intensity of food, mobility, housing and energy systems is the only way to achieve the SDGs and international agreements and goals on climate, nature and pollution.
The Sustainability Transition Scenario you outlined shows that it is eminently possible to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts and resource use. That such an approach can reduce resource use and environmental impacts in wealthier countries, creating the space for growth where it is most needed.
The Global Resource Outlook is a powerful call to action. We need to ensure this call is heeded – which is why UNEP made this report an institutional priority product in 2024. And why we, together, will be bringing its messages to the sixth Assembly, which will be the largest and most globally representative Assembly yet.
As we move ahead, it will be crucial for the IRP to help measure and monitor progress on circularity. To provide decision support tools and enhanced science-policy coherence. To work closely with all science-policy panels – on climate, on biodiversity and soon on pollution and waste – to speak in a unified voice. And to be resourceful so that societies and economies can be less resource-full.
