Tag Archives: ecological debt

Wanted: another planet Earth by 2030

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Key terms used in the 2010 Living Planet Report (by wordle) © WWF / Wordle

The latest Living Planet Report was released today by WWF and the Global Footprint Network, which finds we are now using resources and producing carbon dioxide at a rate 50 percent faster than the Earth can sustain.

It comes in perfect timing with the upcoming COP10 meeting on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan from 18 – 29 October, where the Parties to the Convention will decide upon what actions to take to stem the loss of biodiversity over the next ten years. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, and also the year which the Parties to the CBD had agreed to achieve a significant reduction of the rate of loss of biodiversity. Despite some wins from the conservation movement, overall it is clear that attempts to slow the destruction of nature have failed miserably.

Some of the key findings from the Living Planet Report are:

  • Since 1961, humanity’s Ecological Footprint has more than doubled
  • We’ll need 2 planets to support humanity’s demand by 2030, and 2.8 by 2050
  • The top 10 countries with the biggest Ecological Footprint per person are the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Denmark, Belgium, United States, Estonia, Canada, Australia, Kuwait and Ireland
  • 31 OECD countries account for 37% of humanity’s Ecological Footprint
  • Brazil, Russia, India and China have the fastest growing Footprints, and are on a trajectory to overtake the OECD bloc if they follow the same development path
  • Countries such as Afghanistan & Bangladesh have Footprints that are too small to provide for basic needs

Amidst all of this doom and gloom, this year’s report has made a point of emphasising the intimate connection between the preservation of biodiversity and human well-being, and a message that the path to sustainability is possible – but we need to make changes to how we live, and how we measure progress, in order to fit within the limits of a finite planet.

“The challenge posed by the Living Planet Report is clear,” said Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International. “Somehow we need to find a way to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly prosperous population within the resources of this one planet. All of us have to find a way to make better choices in what we consume and how we produce and use energy.”

Part of this transition to sustainability, I would argue, is to develop an economic system which recognises these limits, and which doesn’t require continuous growth in the consumption of natural resources and production of wastes in order stay affloat.

You can download the full report here, and also check out the many fantastic educational resources that WWF have developed alongside the report – including interactive graphs and maps, plus this cute video.

Running into ecological debt – Earth Overshoot Day 2010

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Apart from playing host to one of the most unconventional election days in Australia’s history, August 21st also marked a rather unfortunate milestone – when humanity consumed all of the renewable resources that nature has been able to generate during this year.

Earth Overshoot Day is an initiative of the new economics foundation and the Global Footprint Network, and signifies the day in which human demand has outstripped the annual biocapacity of the Earth. Since the first Earth Overshoot Day in 1987, human consumption has been continuously growing beyond the sustainable limits of the planet –  it now takes one year and five months to generate the resources and the CO2  absorption capacity to meet that our annual requirements.

This year’s global overshoot milestone has come a full month earlier compared to last year – meaning the rate of resource depletion is becoming more rapid, and our ecological debt is worsening. It’s been known for some time that we are living beyond our means, but the growth in global consumption shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Indeed, continued economic growth (measured by the production and consumption of goods and services, or GDP) is necessary to keep our current global economy afloat. How can the maintenance of the economy be reconciled with the very obvious need to preserve our biosphere? This is clearly a dilemma, as the key issues facing humanity are really the symptoms of global overconsumption:

Climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, water and food shortages — these are all clear signs that we can no longer finance our consumption on credit. Nature is foreclosing.

Technological advancement is often cited as a way to consume resources more efficiently, leading to a relative decoupling of economic growth from consumption. But even if growth occurred at a slower pace, is it possible for the economy to grow continuously on a finite planet?

The folks at the new economics foundation and a growing number of other organisations and  individuals think that an alternative is possible – an economy which grows in quality, rather than quantity. A steady state economy is defined as one which remains within the biophysical limits of the planet – and is measured by indicators other than GDP, such as the Genuine Progress Indicator.

Advocates of the model such as Herman Daly and Tim Jackson think that a steady state economy is not only possible, but necessary in order to transition to a more sustainable, equitable, and happier society. Such a grand transition seems unthinkable in a world which is hooked on growth, and would be vigorously opposed by those with vested interests – working towards action on climate change is difficult enough! But perhaps the prospect of questioning growth is not quite as crazy as initially thought:

It has often been said that the lack of immediacy is the climate movement’s major handicap. The economic crisis we just faced certainly didn’t lack immediacy. There’s nothing more immediate than losing your house, your job, your livelihood, as so many did when the housing bubble burst.

Moreover, people weren’t oblivious to the fact that the crisis was caused by a bubble – by unsustainable growth in a certain sector of the economy. Public confidence in our economic model has already been shaken. To help precipitate its collapse, we need to start connecting the dots between the housing bubble and the much larger bubble that’s bound to burst when it collides in the very near future with the very sharp reality of a devastated planet.

Whatever the case may be, there is a lot of work to be done if we ever plan on living sustainably on the one planet we have – that is, not unless we depart for space within the next century.