New Report Shows: We’re Borrowing Half a Planet From Our Kids

Kids (Wikimedia Commons  )

Global society depletes the planet’s resources ever more quickly. According to new data just released by the Global Footprint Network, we consume almost 50 percent more than what the Earth can sustainably provide. Arab Gulf states and the US lead the list of profligate consumers. As a consequence, we are increasingly in debt to future generations. Here are the figures.

Planet Earth is generously endowed with natural resources. On average, it provides every person with a biosphere – the space needed to provide our resources and absorb our emissions – of 1.8 hectares. The 5.5 billion people in low- and middle-income countries still live within these limits. Yet high-income countries splurge an unsustainable 6 hectares per person. The United Arab Emirates lead the pack of wasteful consumers with an average of 10.3 hectares per person, closely followed by Qatar and the United States with 9.0 hectares. Europeans claim an average 4.5 hectares and the Chinese, and average 1.8 hectares per person.

Global Footprint (InfoGrafik.com)

As the Global Footprint Network points out, those of us who live in the US claim more than 17 American football fields per person through our consumption, thus over-extending the limits of sustainability five-fold. Carbon emissions alone account for more than two thirds of this footprint.

Since we can’t borrow extra biocapacity from outer space, we borrow it from our children. 1986 was the first year in which humanity used up more resources than the planet could produce. In 2009, the Global Footprint Network estimates, we used up all the resources that can be sustainably produced in a year by September 25. If all global citizens consumed at the rate that we do, we would have reached this point in mid-March.

The Global Footprint Network uses a thorough scientific approach which relies on about 6,000 data points from UN statistics per country per year. It works with governments, companies and other institutions to integrate the global footprint concept into their decision-making. “It’s clearly in the self-interest of every country to transition quickly from carbon and resource-intensive economies to the economies of the future,” comments the Network’s President, my Swiss compatriot Mathis Wackernagel.

The latest report shows the task which world leaders will face in Copenhagen. While we can’t participate in their negotiations, our lifestyle choices are only up to us.

Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers. His blog, Wet, Wild and Wonky, appears at www.internationalrivers.org/en/blog/peter-bosshard