United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 and Resource Use

The 17 UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have a clear focus on social issues, mainly on eradicating poverty. This is concluded to be the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for Sustainable Development. Some of the SDGs also include resource use, e.g. water, energy, and sustainable consumption. It is obvious, however, that if developing countries should reach the material standards of the developed countries, it will increase global use of resources dramatically. Western-style consumer lifestyles cannot be sustained globally just by transitions to systems of renewable energy and by producing goods more cleanly and efficiently. One has also to take into account an increasing global population growth, which is mainly expected to take place in developing countries. In this paper this increased resource use is analysed using the IPAT equation. It is shown that, if the UN goals should be reached, and the consumption patterns are similar as today on a global scale, resource consumption will most probably increase dramatically on a global level. This would probably lead to international conflicts and further serious effects on ecosystems. The development in China has been analysed and it is concluded that China cannot be a role model for other developing countries. This is because the Chinese development has been accompanied with huge increases in resource use and environmental degradation. In order to achieve a necessary reduction of our resource use, we need a fundamental change in how our economies deal with natural resources and the services they provide. Basically, this problem has no technical solution, but involves moral and ethics on a global scale. It is important to find ways away from this trend of increasing resource use, when there are still strong economies in the developed countries to support the developing countries. The developing countries will need increasing resources for their development and this will include fossil fuels for a longe perios of time. New pathways for Sustainable Development have to be found before serious international resource conflicts have developed, which will make it difficult to reach global agreements.