Measuring growth

EMERGING giant economies and the United States lived beyond their environmental means as they raced for growth, said a United Nations survey unveiled at the Rio+20 conference on sustainability in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last week.

China, Brazil, South Africa and the US all dug deep into nature’s treasure chest between 1990 and 2008 as their economies expanded voraciously, it said in a look at 20 nations accounting for three-quarters of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP).