PwC: Sustainability challenges for Rio + 20 with global power shifts

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

According to new analysis by PwC comparing shares of world GDP for key global country groupings in 1992, 2012 and 2032, dramatic shifts in global economic power pose sustainability challenges for Rio + 20 and beyond.

Emerging and developing economies could account for 63% of world GDP by 2032, which will also be reflected in their increasingly dominant role in global demand for energy and other finite natural resources. While advanced economies accounted for around 64% of world GDP in 1992,  this has now fallen to only 50% and could be just 37% by 2032 according to PwC projections.

Rich developed economies continue to take a lead on sustainability, but long term solutions to global issues like climate change and biodiversity can only come through concerted action that also includes the increasingly dominant emerging and developing economies, particularly but not only, the BRICs. This upward trend is being driven primarily by China, India and other developing Asian economies, whose share of world GDP has risen from just 11% in 1992 to 26% now and could reach around 37% by 2032 according to PwC. Brazil, Russia and other emerging economies outside Asia are also projected to grow significantly faster than the G7 over the next two decades.