As incomes rise across large parts of the developing world, aspirations for a materially richer lifestyle, similar to that long enjoyed in wealthier nations, are rising with them. Yet the resource and emissions intensity of that same lifestyle, if extended to billions more people using the technologies and consumption patterns that built it, would place a burden on the planet's ecological systems far beyond what current models of production and waste can sustainably absorb.

Which among the following is the most crucial inference that can be made from the above passage?