CIAO DATE: 03/2011
November 2010
Center on International Cooperation
Globalization has improved the living standards of hundreds of millions of people – but growing resource scarcity means it risks becoming a victim of its own success. Left unaddressed, scarcity of food, energy, water, land and other key ‘natural assets’ has the potential to trigger intensifying zero sum competition between states – in the process, increasing poverty, state fragility, economic instability, inflation, and strategic resource competition between major powers. On food, projections suggest that production will need to increase by 50% by 2030 (and 100% more by 2050), to meet forecast demand. Yet there are already signs that the productivity gains of the Green Revolution are running out of steam, even as significant amounts of crops are being diverted to biofuels. The 2008 food price spike provided a taste of what may be to come, with the number of undernourished people rising by over 150 million, unrest in 61 countries and over 30 countries introducing export bans or restrictions.
Resource link: Globalization and Scarcity: Multilateralism for a world with limits [PDF] - 935K