Germany supports the work of the UN Resource Panel to use natural resources more efficiently. "It must be our goal to use raw materials responsibly and to thus break the resource consumption spiral," outlined Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier on the occasion of the 12th Meeting of the International Resource Panel (IRP) in Berlin. Within one generation global raw materials' demand has doubled - from approx. 35 billion tonnes in 1980 to approx. 70 billion tonnes in 2010. The Resource Panel's scientists presented two studies showing the impacts of rising raw materials consumption regarding metals, which is a particularly important area for Germany.
One report deals with the environmental risks and challenges of anthropogenic metals flows and cycles, a second one is entitled "Metal Recycling - Opportunities, Limits, Infrastructure".
Using resources more efficiently is a major challenge that industrialised, newly industrialising and developing countries can only master together. Altmaier proposed making resource efficiency a major overarching issue of the UN sustainability goals, the elaboration of which was agreed at the UN conference in Rio de Janeiro last year. "We must work closer together internationally in the field of resource policy. We need a regular exchange on this matter and we should establish an appropriate framework for this purpose," Altmaier commented.
In 2002 Germany adopted a resource efficiency target in its national sustainability strategy. "In Germany today resources are used much more efficiently than ten years ago. But we can do more: We intend to double resource productivity by 2020 as compared to 1994," Altmaier stressed. Last year the German government launched the German resource efficiency programme, ProgRess, to increase resource efficiency. "With regard to the implementation of the Energiewende, the transformation of our energy system, Germany is also dependent on many metals that are only available to a limited degree," Altmaier added.
The International Resource Panel is a scientific body of representatives from industrialised, newly industrialising and developing countries. Its goal is to increase resource efficiency. It is located with UNEP. The meeting started on Monday and will finish on Friday. Chairpersons are Ashok Khosla (India) and the former chairman of the Bundestag's Committee on the Environment, Ernst-Ulrich von Weizsäcker.