Page:Brundtland Report.djvu/209

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A/42/427
English
Page 209


grew faster than these sectors in developed market economies. By 1984, developing countries accounted for 11.6 per cent of world MVA (still well short of the 'Lima target' of 25 per cent adopted by UNIDO in 1975), The centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe had raised their share of world MVA from 15.2 per cent in 1963 to 24.9 per cent in 1984.[1]

9. The international trade in manufactured goods, which has consistently grown faster than has world manufacturing output, is one of the factors underlying the changing geography of industrialization. Many developing nations, particularly newly industrialized countries (NICs), have shared in this growth and made spectacular progress in industrialization. Taking the Third World as a whole, exports of manufactured goods have grown steadily relative to primary exports, rising from 13.3 per cent of their total non-oil exports in 1960 to 54.7 per cent in 1982. (See Table 8–2.)

10. In general, developing-country industrial production is diversifying and moving into more capital, intensive areas such as metal products, chemicals, machinery, and equipment. And heavy industries, traditionally the most polluting, have been growing in relation to light industries. At the same time, the share of industries involved in food products, and to a lesser extent in textiles and clothing, has fallen significantly.

2. Environmental Decline and Response

11. Industry and its products have an impact on the natural resources base of civilization through the entire cycle of raw materials exploration and extraction, transformation into products, energy consumption, waste generation, and the use and disposal of products by consumers. These impacts may be positive, enhancing the quality of a resource or extending its uses. Or they may be negative, as a result of process and product pollution and of depletion or degradation of resources.

12. The negative environmental impacts of industrial activity were initially perceived as localized problems of air. water, and land pollution. Industrial expansion following the Second World War took place without much awareness of the environment and brought with it a rapid rise in pollution, symbolized by the Los Angeles smog; the proclaimed 'death' of Lake Erie; the progressive pollution of major rivers like the Meuse, Elbe, and Rhine: and chemical poisoning by mercury in Minamats. These problems have also been found in many parts of the Third World as industrial growth, urbanization, and the use of automobiles spread. [2]

13. Public concern grew rapidly and forced a broad debate on environment conservation and economic growth. The possibility that the process of industrial growth would run into material resource constraints became an important theme in this debate. Although non-renewable resources are by definition exhaustible, recent assessments suggest that few minerals are likely to run out in the near future.

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  1. UNIDO. Industry and Development: Global Report 1985 (New York: 1985).
  2. WHO, Urban Air Pollution 1973-1980 (Geneva: 1984); World Resources Institute/International Institute for Environment and Development, World Resources 1986 (New York: Basic Books. 1986).