The future of our world will be determined by several factors. One critical factor is adequate access to and availability of natural resources. Water, mineral ores, and fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas are highly strategic resources. Together with farmland and resources from the biosphere, they constitute natural endowment, which is critical to any country's prosperity and security.
Asia is attracting increasing international attention, in large part because of its re-emergence on the global stage after a two-century decline. Asia's rise, however, has been accompanied by an insatiable appetite for natural resources.
Unlike North America and Europe, which are well endowed with natural capital, Asia is the world's most-resource-poor continent, especially given its size and population. Asia's overexploitation and degradation of natural resources has created an environmental crisis, which, in turn, is contributing to regional climate change. For example, the Tibetan Plateau, with its towering height, is warming at a rate almost twice as fast as the rest of the world, according to several scientific studies.