Energy demand

In order to secure our needs and welfare indefinitely into the future, we need to ensure that the natural world is maintained and that the services it provides for us are protected, nurtured and sustained. Demand for the resources that meet our needs continues to increase, however, as the world population rises. Energy demand is expected to be 60% greater by 2030. A similar, if not larger, increase in demand can be expected for other non-renewable resources such as metals. As world consumption of goods from television sets to cookers and from cars to computers inexorably increases, so the demand for raw materials rises. Other minerals are used to build houses, offices, roads and airports. Immense quantities of energy and carbon dioxide emissions are linked to the production of cement; there is increased demand for timber for furniture and construction, among other things, and paper use is rocketing upwards, placing further pressure on forests including in the temperate and boreal regions where, from Australia to Scandinavia and from New Zealand to Russia, dwindling stands of old-growth forest are still being felled. Alongside the petrol and diesel needed to power transportation and farming, we also use huge quantities of crude oil to manufacture plastics. Plastics are increasingly used worldwide for products ranging from mobile phones to carrier bags and from water pipes to car bumpers.