Jakarta, Bangkok, Paris, May 19, 2003 - According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) there are now more 'middle to high income' consumers - those earning more than US$7,000 per annum - in Asia and the Pacific than in Western Europe and North America combined.

But such prosperity is only enjoyed by 26 percent of the region's population and UNEP is worried aspirations for further growth may come at a high environmental price.

A background paper prepared for a regional meeting in Yogyakarta, Indonesia this week shows that if car ownership in China, India and Indonesia reached the global average, 200 million vehicles would be added to the global fleet, twice the number of all cars in the USA today.

"It is clear that the Earth's natural ecosystems will not cope with the style of industrialization and over consumption seen in Europe or North America," said Shafqat Kakakhel, UNEP Deputy Executive Director, who will open the three-day meeting this Wednesday, May 21.

"The region's economic development agenda needs to be coupled with clean production processes and sustainable consumption patterns," he will tell around 50 government, business and civil society representatives attending the Asia Pacific Expert Meeting on Promoting Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns, organized by UNEP and the Indonesian Government, in co-operation with the United Nations Development Programme and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Mr Kakakhel said developed countries bore the lion's share of responsibility for shifting to cleaner, less wasteful production and consumption patterns but developing countries and economies in transition needed to actively take part in, and benefit from, the transition.

In a background paper 'Forging New Paths Toward Sustainable Development', prepared for the meeting, UNEP has identified many positive initiatives in the region.

It cites a recent survey showing consumers in developing countries to be generally more concerned and aware of their consumption impacts on the environment than those in developed countries. The global study found over half of respondents in Mumbai, India said they considered the 'life' behind the product they buy compared to only 30 percent in New York.

UNEP announced at its Global Ministerial Environment Forum meeting in Nairobi in February that it would be enlisting human behaviorists and psychologists to further understand how consumers can be turned on to smarter, greener lifestyles.

In Thailand an energy efficiency labeling scheme has helped increase market share of single door refrigerators from 12 percent in 1996 to 96 percent in 1998.

Government information campaigns have successfully targeted issues such as clean water and sustainable forest programmes in Indonesia, waste management and reuse in Sri Lanka, and avoidance of excess packaging in Kiribati.

China has factored sustainable consumption into its Law on Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, initiated publicity and educational programmes, eco-labelling, certification of environmentally-sound products and a 30 percent sales tax reductions for light, less polluting vehicles.

Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines have introduced taxes and fees on resource consumption and waste discharge, while Japanese laws encourage green procurement, recycling and waste management, and provide financial incentives for alternative fuel vehicles.

Development banks are now initiating cleaner production loan programmes and UNEP has helped establish National Cleaner Production Centres in 22 countries as well as the Life Cycle Initiative.

The UNEP background paper shows that Asia and the Pacific's current consumption pressure per capita is around half that of Western Europe.

According to UNEP this creates historic opportunities for development: "The explosion in new industry sectors such as IT, mobile communications, tourism and transportation in Asia, suggest older, more polluting and wasteful technologies can 'leapfrogged' by new innovations," said Bas de Leeuw, Coordinator of UNEP's Sustainable Consumption Programme .

However, obstacles to promoting cleaner production and sustainable consumption in the region include inherent resistance to change, weak capacities to identify solutions, lack of knowledge about benefits and opportunities of the new approaches and scarcity of information and policy frameworks.

The meeting will prepare an agenda for action, expected to include the need for more Government leadership in policy setting, planning, enforcement and education; greater responsibility by business for resource efficiency and eco-design; the need for enhanced coalitions and involvement of civic groups; and recognition of eco-innovation in both globalisation processes and culturally-specific knowledge.

The Indonesia meeting is the first opportunity for the governments in Asia-Pacific to identify their priorities for sustainable consumption and production actions, and will be compared with findings from Africa, the Americas and Europe at a meeting to be held in Marrakech, Morocco in June.

Developing a global ten-year framework of programmes on consumption and production was one of the key outcomes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg last year. This was again endorsed by the G8 Ministers of Environment meeting in Paris in April, at which Japan proposed an international project to research ways to achieve a life cycle economy.

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For more information please contact: Tim Higham, Regional Information Officer, UNEP, Bangkok, phone +66 2 2882127, email higham@un.org, or Robert Bisset UNEP Spokesperson for Europe, DTIE, Paris, phone +33-1-44377613, +33-6 2272 5842 (mobile), robert.bisset@unep.fr, or in Nairobi, Eric Falt, UNEP Spokesman, phone +254 2 623292, +254 733 682656 (mobile), or Nick Nuttall, UNEP Head of Media on +254 2 623084, +254 733 632755 (mobile), nick.nuttall@unep.org.

The UNEP report 'Forging New Paths to Sustainable Development', prepared as background for the meeting, is available at www.uneptie.org/sustain

Further information at UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry and Economics websites:
Cleaner production - www.uneptie.org/pc
Sustainable consumption- www.uneptie.org/ sustain

UNEP press release "Marketing 'Cool' Life-Styles Key to Selling Clean and Green Products" available at http://www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=284&ArticleID=3206

UNEP News Release ROAP 2003/4