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[PDF] International Resource Politics: New challenges demanding new governance approaches for a green economy
Natural resources are back on the agenda…This paper…pleads for new approaches, called international resource politics. What is new…is the interconnectivity across critical resource shortages, which presents two challenges: the environmental challenge to cope with impacts from using resources along their lifecycle…[and] the socio-political challenge to cope with human rights, poverty, and freedom internationally. These two dimensions are often neglected…However, this paper emphasizes their strategic character for the worldwide endeavor of a green economy and the forthcoming Rio+20 summit...: Firstly, environmental benefits in industrialized countries may coincide with a shifting of problems to the poorer regions…Secondly, economic benefits of resource-efficiency measures in manufacturing sectors are dissatisfactory as long as the corresponding products end up as hazardous waste in poorer regions…Thirdly, a finite planet with “planetary boundaries” for key environmental parameters…sets limits on substituting one finite resource…with another…Business as usual is not an option…