Energy, Food, Climate Change, and the Rise of China:

Scenarios of Global Crisis

Dr. Minqi Li, Assistant Professor

Department of Economics, University of Utah

1645 E. Campus Center, Salt Lake City, UT 84112

Phone: 801-828-5279; E-mail: minqi.li@economics.utah.edu

June 2007

Contribution to Marxist Renewal

Capitalism is an economic system based on the production for profit and

accumulation of capital. The endless pursuit of profit and accumulation inevitably

leads to material production and consumption on increasingly larger scales that tend

to deplete the earth’s resources and pollute the environment.

These processes are now reaching their ecological limits. In the coming decades,

global capitalism is likely to be confronted with multiple major crises arising from the

depletion of fossil fuels, declining food production, and potential catastrophes

associated with climate change. It is the opinion of this author that it is impossible for

these crises to be resolved within the historical framework of capitalism. The survival

of the humanity is at stake. The resolution of the global environmental crisis requires

an alternative social system, which is based on production for use, rational allocation

of global resources with democratic planning, and equitable distribution, that is, a

world socialist planned economy.

After the 1976 counter-revolutionary coup, China’s bureaucratic capitalist class fully

consolidated its political power. Since then, the capitalist relations of production have

been established in China and China has become increasingly incorporated into the

global capitalist economy. In recent years, China has become a leading driving force

for the global capitalist economy. Some speculate that China will replace the US to

become the next hegemony, and lead a successful restructuring of the capitalist world

system.

In fact, capitalist accumulation in China has led to social and environmental crisis at

home, and by greatly accelerating the consumption of energy and other resources, has

played a major role in intensifying the global environmental crisis.

The next section discusses the relationship between capitalist accumulation and the

global environmental crisis. The rest of the paper presents several scenarios of global

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ecological crisis, discussing the depletion of fossil fuels, declining food production,

climate change, and China’s growing impact on the global environment.

Capitalism and the Global Environmental Crisis

Capitalist states and individual capitalists engage in constant, intense competition

against each other. To prevail in competition, capitalists are motivated as well as

compelled to use a substantial portion of their profits for capital accumulation.

If the organic composition of capital (the ratio of means of production to labor power)

is constant, capital accumulation must proceed no faster than the growth of the labor

force or the population. Otherwise, capital accumulation would soon deplete the

reserve army of labor, driving down the profit rate and leading to crisis. 1

To be freed from the constraint of the available labor force and to rebuild the reserve

army of labor, the organic composition of capital must rise. The rising organic

composition of capital requires the substitution of machines and other means of

production for labor power. Marx (1967: 364) said: “the implements of labour, in the

form of machinery, necessitate the substitution of natural forces for human force …”

With rising organic composition of capital, the consumption of energy and other

material resources tends to grow more rapidly than the population.

Moreover, as capitalist production expands, for the surplus value to be realized, the

populations’ consumption must expand accordingly. Consumption has become

1 Strictly speaking, the organic composition of capital refers to the ratio of the value of the means of

production employed to the value of labor power and the technical composition of capital refers to the

physical ratio of the means of production to labor power. For simplicity, this paper makes no

distinction between the two definitions of composition of capital. For the organic and technical

composition of capital and implications for capitalist accumulation, see Marx (1967: 574-606).

2

increasingly “capital intensive” and requires the use of growing amounts of energy

and other resources.

In the core states of the capitalist world system (or the “advanced capitalist states”),

the so-called “services” account for more than two-thirds of the GDP. Some argue

that as the economy moves towards “services” or “information” sectors, capitalism

becomes increasingly “dematerialized” and dematerialization would allow capital

accumulation to take place without rising consumption of material resources. In fact,

some services such as transportation is closely related to material production and is

highly energy-intensive. Other services, such as wholesale and retail, finance and

insurance, government, education, and health care are non-productive sectors that do

not generate surplus value by themselves. From the Marxist perspective, their

“incomes” result from redistribution of the surplus value generated in the material

production sectors.2

The so-called dematerialization in the core states to a large extent reflects the re-

location of production capital to the periphery and semi-periphery and the

redistribution of the global surplus value from the periphery and semi-periphery to the

core. This type of dematerialization cannot be reproduced on a global scale.

Therefore, capitalist accumulation inevitably leads to rising consumption of energy

and other resources. The global capitalist economy currently depends heavily on non-

renewable resources for energy and raw materials. This is clearly unsustainable.

2 Publicly run education and health care do not produce surplus value for the capitalists (though they

certainly create conditions for the reproduction of labor force that is essential for capitalism) and are

“non-productive” in the capitalist sense. Education and health care institutions run by private

capitalists do generate surplus value though their operations depend on material inputs such as

buildings and equipment produced in the material production sectors.

3

Recycling and substitution of non-renewable resources by renewable resources help to

slow down the depletion of non-renewable resources. However, recycling of non-

renewable resources can never be complete, in many areas renewable resources

cannot substitute for non-renewable resources (for example, in most cases metal

products or plastics cannot be replaced by raw materials produced from agriculture),

and the use of renewable resources is limited by the eco-system’s regenerative

capacity. Moreover, the use of both non-renewable and renewable resources

inevitably generate wastes and have environmental impacts, but the eco-system’s

ability to assimilate the wastes generated by the human economy is limited

(Hueseman 2003).

The endless pursuit of profit and accumulation is inherently unsustainable and will

sooner or later lead to a general environmental crisis. Attempts to provide technical

solutions to the environmental problems are subject to the limit of basic physical laws

(such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics) and any technical gains in “eco-

efficiency” (reduction of environmental impact per unit of output) would soon be

overwhelmed by relentless capital accumulation.

Environmental problems represent social costs that are not taken into account by

capitalists’ private calculations. Individual capitalists are not motivated to clean the

environment or develop alternative resources. This problem of “externality” can be

somewhat alleviated by government regulations within nation states. However,

capitalism is a global system but there is not a world government that can effectively

represent the collective interest of the global capitalists as a whole. Instead,

individual capitalist states are motivated primarily to maximize their national rates of

accumulation to prevail in global competition. There is no effective mechanism to

regulate the global environment. Even if some international agreements can be

reached on certain environmental issues, there would be strong incentives for

individual states to “cheat” or simply ignore the agreements.

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China and the Global Energy Crisis

At the current trend, in a few years China will replace US to become the world’s

largest economy (measured at purchasing power parity). China’s rapid economic

growth has led to rapid increase in demand for energy and other resources. Between

1980 and 2000, China’s energy consumption grew at an average annual rate of 3.9

percent. Since 2000, however, China’s energy consumption has grown at 10.9

percent a year (Cui 2006: 97-99).

China already accounts for about 15 percent of the world’s energy consumption. At

the current rate, China will account for about 30 percent of the world’s energy

consumption in 10 years, and more than half of the world’s energy consumption in 20

years. This is clearly impossible! Moreover, China’s rapid growth in energy

consumption has greatly accelerated the depletion of fossil fuels and other non-

renewable resources, and may soon precipitate a global energy crisis.

Fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) provide 80 percent of the world’s energy

supply (IEA 2006). About a quarter of the energy supply from fossil fuels is used for

electricity generation, and another 10 percent is used by services and household

sectors (for space heating, cooking, etc.). In principle (though with practical

difficulties), fossil fuels used for electricity generation can be replaced by nuclear or

renewable energy sources. Energy use in services and household sectors may be

provided by electricity generated by nuclear or renewable sources. However, in other

areas, fossil fuels cannot be substituted by electricity, and are indispensable for the

operations of the global capitalist economy.

Oil is essential for the transportation system based on cars and trucks. Electric cars or

fuel cells made from hydrogen have serious limitations and cannot realistically

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replace oil on any large scale.3 While the rail system could be operated with electric

trains, inter-continental long-distance transportation by air and by ocean (with the

possible exception of some very expensive, nuclear-powered ships) completely

depends on oil. Without inter-continental long-distance transportation, the entire

global capitalist economy based on the worldwide division of labor and trade would

collapse.

Oil provides an indispensable fuel for heavy equipment used in agriculture, mining,

and construction. Oil, natural gas, and coal are essential inputs for the production of

fertilizers, plastics, and other chemicals (Heinberg 2006: 4-7). Many high-

temperature, high-pressure industrial processes depend on coal and natural gas. Coal

is used as fuel and an essential input for about two-thirds of the world’s steel

production (Australian Coal Association 2007). Without fossil fuels, not only that the

world economy will lose a major source of energy supply, but much of the modern

industry and agriculture will cease to function.

Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources and will inevitably be depleted with endless

capital accumulation and consumption of resources. There is growing consensus that

the world’s oil production is likely to peak soon and start to decline irreversibly.

Heinberg (2006: 23) summarizes the studies on peak oil dates, which range from now

to 2030. Most independent studies predict a peak oil date before 2015, and those who

predict a date after 2015 are institutions related to the oil industry or the US

government. Campbell (2005: 209-216) expects the world natural gas production to

peak by 2025, staying on a high plateau until 2045, and then decline precipitously.

Laherrere (2004) predicts that the world natural gas production will peak around

2030.

3 On limitations of electric cars and hydrogen, see Heinberg (2003: 146-149); Trainer (2004: Chapter

6); and Kunstler (2005: 110-116; 125-126).

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The conventional wisdom is that the world’s coal reserves are relatively abundant and

will last about 150 years at the current production rate. However, a recent study by

the German Energy Watch Group (2007) finds that the world’s coal production is

likely to peak around 2025. Another study by the Institute for Energy based in

Netherlands concludes that the world reserves of economically recoverable coal are

decreasing fast and coal production costs are steadily rising all over the world.4

Nuclear energy and most of the renewable energy sources can only generate

electricity. Biomass is the only renewable source that can be used as substitutes for

fossil fuels in the making of liquid or gaseous fuels, and various chemical products.

But the potential of biomass is limited by the available quantity of productive land. It

is already difficult for the world agriculture to meet the rising demand for food from

the growing population (to be discussed in the next section). There is little additional

land available to grow energy crops. Trainer (2004: Chapter 5) estimates that if 600

million hectares or about 40 percent of the world’s total cropland is used to grow

biomass, it can produce just enough liquid fuel to replace about 20 percent of the

world’s current oil consumption.

The large-scale production of biomass is ecologically destructive and unsustainable.

It requires large amounts of chemical fertilizers and water, and causes serious soil

erosion. To grow biomass, agribusinesses have converted forests, range, and wetland

into cropland, destroying rainforests, leading to water pollution and water depletion,

reducing biodiversity, and contributing to global warming. As both the growing of

biomass and the conversion of biomass into useful fuel require large amounts of

energy, biomass has low energy returns and some, such as ethanol made from corn,

4 The study has not yet been published. For a summary of the study’s findings, see Heinburg (2007).

7

may have negative energy returns, that is, it takes more energy to make the ethanol

than is contained in the ethanol (Heinberg 2006: 93-98; Friedemann 2007).

Nuclear energy is based on non-renewable resources. Breeder reactors have serious

safety, security, and pollution problems (Trainer 2004: Chapter 9). Nuclear fusion

still needs to overcome some serious technical obstacles, will not be practical for at

least several decades, and will be very expensive even when it becomes technically

feasible (Trainer 2004: Chapter 9; Crooks 2006). Conventional nuclear fission burner

reactors use uranium, which is a limited resource. According to the Energy Watch

Group (2006), the world’s proved uranium reserves will be exhausted in 30 years at

the current rate of consumption and all possible resources of uranium will be

exhausted in 70 years. The expansion of nuclear energy is further limited by the slow

pace of building new nuclear reactors.

Solar and wind electricity require the use of large amounts of land and are unlikely to

provide more than a fraction of the world’s future energy supply due to the constraints

of available land. Solar and wind are variable and intermittent sources of energy and

cannot serve as the basic or base-load source of electricity. It is estimated that solar

and wind electricity may have a peak capacity up to 20 percent of the installed base-

load electricity capacity or supply up to 10 percent of the total electricity production

(Lightfoot and Green 2002). The large-scale use of solar and wind electricity could

also have serious environmental impacts (Heusemann 2003). Moreover, the

production of the equipment required for solar and wind electricity generation as well

as the construction of the necessary infrastructure depends on fossil fuels and other

non-renewable resources (Kunstler 2005: 121-131).

Hydropower is limited by the available sites and has serious environmental problems

(Heinberg 2003: 149-150; Kunstler 2005: 119-121). Other renewable sources, such

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as tide, wave, and geothermal, are unlikely to make a large worldwide contribution

(Heinberg 2003: 151-154; Hayden 2004: 209-212; Trainer 2006).

Figure 1 projects the world’s energy supply over the course of this century. Some of

the key assumptions are: the world’s oil production peaks in 2010; natural gas

production peaks in 2025; coal production peaks in 2025; nuclear electricity peaks in

2050; biomass uses up to 40 percent of the world’s cropland; intermittent sources of

electricity (solar and wind) generate up to 20 percent of the world’s total electricity

production. Despite substantial increases in the energy supply from renewable

sources, the world’s total energy supply peaks in 2025 and declines thereafter.

Between 1960 and 2004, the world’s energy efficiency (economic output per unit of

energy use) increased at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent. Since the first oil

crisis, there has been some acceleration in efficiency improvement. Between 1973

and 2004, the world’s energy efficiency improved at an average annual rate of 1.3

percent. Lightfoot and Green (2001) conducted a sector by sector study of the long-

term technical potential of energy efficiency improvement in the world economy, and

concluded that the maximum potential energy efficiency is between 250 percent and

330 percent of the world average energy efficiency in 1990. Assuming all of the

efficiency improvement potential is to be realized before 2100, then the average

annual growth rate of energy efficiency between 1990 and 2100 would be between 0.8

percent and 1.1 percent. This paper assumes that the energy efficiency in the world

economy improves at an annual rate of 1.5 percent.

China depends on coal for about 70 percent of the energy consumption. The Energy

Watch Group (2007) points out that China’s coal production could peak around 2015

and declines rapidly after the peak. Figure 2 projects the growth of per capita GDP in

China and the rest of the world based on the assumption that coal production in China

will peak in 2015 and China’s imports of energy will rise to 10 percent of the world’s

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total fuel consumption (consumption of oil, natural gas, coal, and biomass as fuel, not

including their use for electricity generation). China’s energy efficiency is assumed

to grow 1.7 percent a year and the rest of the world’s GDP is simply calculated as the

difference between the word’s GDP and China’s GDP. Population projections are

based on United Nations (2007).

If China manages to maintain rapid economic growth after the world oil production

peak with rising energy imports, the rest of the world will have to suffer years of

economic disaster. After 2015, with the decline of coal production, the Chinese

economy will collapse and suffer from irreversible decline after 2030. In short, the

global energy crisis will translate into a prolonged world economic depression.

However, energy crisis is just one among many aspects of the global environmental

crisis that the world will have to confront in the coming decades.

China and the Global Food Crisis

Over the second half of the 20th Century, the world experienced rapid increases in

food production and population. The “success” of modern agriculture depends on

mechanization, chemical inputs (such as fertilizers and pesticides), irrigation, and

high-yield seeds (that are responsive to chemical fertilizers and irrigation). Modern

agriculture is therefore built upon cheap oil and natural gas. About ten calories of

energy are required to deliver just one calorie of food to the consumer in an advanced

capitalist country (Pfeiffer 2006: 19-27).

However, all elements of modern agriculture are now suffering from diminishing

returns. Mechanized tillage, use of chemical fertilizers, and large-scale monoculture

contribute to soil erosion. Pests are developing generic resistance to pesticides.

Perennial irrigation leads to waterlogging and salinization and depletes aquifers. Due

to land degradation and the growth of cities, the world’s total area of arable land has

peaked and is now declining. The “solutions” that capitalist corporations and

10

governments are trying to provide, such as genetically modified crops, threaten to

bring about ecological disasters (Goldsmith 2005; Pfeiffer 2006; Heinberg 2006: 49-

54).

The world per capita grain production peaked in 1984 (Figure 3).5 Under the current

trend, the world’s per capita grain production would fall to between 200 and 250

kilograms a year by the second half of the 21st Century. These are levels that could

lead to worldwide starvation. Separately, due to persistent over-fishing, the world’s

fish stocks are expected to collapse before 2050, making fishing impossible and

depriving the world’s population of a major source of protein (Harvey 2006).

As soil erosion, land degradation, depletion of aquifers, and loss of biodiversity

develop, at some point, the world food production could collapse, declining rapidly

and irreversibly. Given the dependence of modern agriculture on fossil fuels, the

coming peak of the world oil and natural gas production could be the trigger that

starts the collapse. Food is the basis of survival and civilization, a general collapse of

the world food production would make the depression scenarios projected in Figure 1

and 2 appear to be “optimistic.”

Between the late 1950s and the 1970s, the Chinese agriculture was organized

according to socialist principles. Land and the basic means of production were owned

collectively by local communities (organized in “people’s communes”), income was

shared more or less equally, and agricultural production was incorporated into

national planning. After serious initial failures, collective agriculture led to steady

increases in production and built the physical and social infrastructure required for

sustainable improvement in quality of life. The commune system was particularly

effective in meeting the population’s basic needs with limited material resources. By

5 Data for world grain production from 1950 to 2006 are from Earth Policy Institute (2007).

11

the late 1970s, China’s health and education indicators were better than many middle-

income countries (Wen and Li 2006).

In the early 1980s, China’s agriculture was in effect privatized. Initially, agricultural

production grew rapidly as the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides surged. But

as the use of chemical inputs suffered diminishing returns and the physical

infrastructure built in the collective era was left to deteriorate, food production started

to stagnate. Per capita grain production peaked in 1996 (Figure 4).

Global warming could prove to be particularly devastating to China’s environment

and agriculture. Water scarcity and extreme weather could reduce China’s crop

production by 10 percent by 2030, and by up to 37 percent after 2050 (ASPO USA

2007).

China and the Global Climate Change

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report provides decisive

evidence that human activities (fossil fuel use and agriculture) have led to rising

global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases and contributed to global

warming (IPCC 2007a).

Under the current trend, the global average temperature would rise by between 1.1

and 6.4 degrees Celsius over this century, leading to floods, droughts, falling

agricultural productivity, rising sea levels, and massive extinction of species. If the

global average temperature were to rise by more than 2 degrees within this century or

more than 3 degrees above the pre-industrial level, the earth’s eco-systems could start

to collapse. The oceans and the terrestrial biosphere would become net carbon

sources, causing unstoppable global warming. James Lovelock, the world’s leading

earth system scientist, told the reporter that most of the world would become scrub

and desert and most of the oceans would be denuded of life, and a massive die-off

12

could reduce the world population by more than 80 percent (IPCC 2007a and 2007b;

Leake 2007).

To prevent the global temperature from rising by more than 3 degrees above the pre-

industrial level, global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide should stabilize at

about 450 ppm (parts per million). For this to be achieved, global cumulative

emissions of carbon dioxide over the 21st Century should be no more than 2460

billion tons if no climate carbon cycle feedback effects are taken into account or no

more than 1800 billion tons if feedback effects are taken into account. As carbon

dioxide emissions associated with land use are about 6 billion tons a year, this implies

that the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels over the 21st Century

must be no more than 1200-1860 billion tons (IPCC 2007a and 2007c).

The world is now emitting carbon dioxide from fossil fuels at an annual rate of 27

billion tons (implying total emissions of 2700 billion tons over the course of a

century). Currently, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is rising at more

than 2 ppm a year. At this rate, the critical limit of 450 ppm will be breached in 35

years.

In 2004, China emitted 4.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide, or 18 percent of the world’s

total emissions. Between 2000 and 2004, China’s carbon dioxide emissions grew at

an average annual rate of 14 percent and China is expected to overtake the US in 2007

or 2008 to become the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter (“Carbon Emissions to

Rise 59 Per Cent,” Financial Times, May 22, 2007, p. 2). If China’s emissions were

to grow 10 percent a year, then by 2020 China alone would emit about twice as much

as all of the advanced capitalist countries combined.

The Kyoto Protocol designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in advanced

capitalist countries has largely failed. New global efforts to address global warming

13

have to face considerable obstacles. The world’s largest emitters, such as the US,

China, and India are particularly unenthusiastic. At this point, it is not even clear

whether a new climate treaty will replace the Kyoto Protocol in time. Even if some

international agreement can be reached, the goals that could be agreed upon by all the

major national governments might turn out to be too little, too late, and there will be

no guarantee that even a watered down agreement can be effectively and adequately

implemented.

The “good” news is that with the depletion of fossil fuels, the world’s capitalist

economies will be forced to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Based on the

assumptions used to project the world energy supply in Figure 1, if the world’s

production of fossil fuels were to peak in the coming one or two decades, then over

the course of this century, the cumulative consumption of coal, oil, and natural gas

would be 288.7, 180.9, and 183.3 billion tons of oil equivalent respectively.

According to IEA (2006), each ton (of oil equivalent) of coal emits 3.83 tons of

carbon dioxide, each ton of oil emits 2.80 tons, and each ton of natural gas emits 2.28

tons. Based on these rates, the total emissions of carbon dioxide over the course of

this century would amount to 2030 billion tons, or several hundred billion tons more

than what would be required to prevent catastrophic global warming. Thus, to

prevent climate catastrophe, even more drastic cuts in world energy consumption than

is suggested in Figure 1 will be required.

Latest evidence suggests that the earth’s self-regulating system might already start to

fail. The Southern Ocean, which is the world’s biggest carbon sink (accounting for 15

percent of the carbon absorption potential), has become effectively saturated. This

new finding suggests that both the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the global

temperature are likely to rise faster than is previously anticipated, making it much

more difficult to stabilize the global climate (McCarthy 2007).

14

Centuries of relentless capitalist accumulation have set the humanity on the course of

total self-destruction. The very survival of the humanity and civilization is at stake.

There is no possibility that the crisis can be avoided or overcome within the historical

framework of capitalism.

To rebuild the human society on an ecologically sustainable basis, there must be an

economic system that is based on the production for use, to meet people’s basic needs,

rather than one that is oriented towards endless pursuit of profit and accumulation. If

some of the productive forces achieved in the capitalist era are to be preserved, an

economic system based on production for use has to be some form of socialist

planned economy. However, the historical lessons of the 20th Century suggest that

planning limited at local or national levels will be inadequate. To overcome the

global environmental crisis and save the humanity, resources have to be re-allocated

with rational planning on a global scale. To accomplish this, there must be a world

socialist planned economy based on the international solidarity of all the working

people.

15

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Figure 1World Primary Energy Supply: 2000-2100

(Million tons of oil equivalnent)

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

1400020

00

2010

2020

2030

2040

2050

2060

2070

2080

2090

2100

Coal Oil Natural Gas Nuclear Hydro Biomass Other

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Figure 2Per Capita GDP: Annual Growth Rates

(Historical and Projected, 2001-2050)

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

2050

China Rest of the World

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Figure 3World's Grain Production

(Historical and Trend, 1950-2100)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

250019

5019

6019

7019

8019

9020

0020

1020

2020

3020

4020

5020

6020

7020

8020

9021

00

100

150

200

250

300

350

Total (million tons, left scale) Per Person (kg)Peak Trend (kg) Trough Trend (kg)

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Figure 4China's Grain Production

(Historical and Trend, 1950-2100)

0

100

200

300

400

500

60019

5019

6019

7019

8019

9020

0020

1020

2020

3020

4020

5020

6020

7020

8020

9021

00

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

Total (million tons, left scale) Per Person (kg)Peak Trend (kg) Trough Trend (kg)

23