Footprint Network Blog - Footprint for Government
China’s Ecological Footprint has quadrupled in the last four decades, with the country now demanding more from the planet than any nation except the United States, according to a report released last month by Global Footprint Network, WWF China, and CCICED (China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development), a Chinese government advisory group.
In the last in the last 50 years, China has soared from being one of the more moderate consumers of the planet’s resources to one of the largest, according to the Report on Ecological Footprint in China, presented June 10 in Beijing. The report’s findings underscore the crucial role China will play in addressing the major resource challenges humanity faces in the 21st century.
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As the second fastest-growing Canadian city with a population that has grown 13 percent in five years, Calgary finds itself at a critical moment. City leaders are faced with making infrastructure and planning decisions that will shape the way residents live for years to come, and are looking to balance the needs of citizens with a growing concern about the city’s use of natural resources. The government has launched an Ecological Footprint Project with Global Footprint Network that will help officials understand the ecological impacts of these decisions – and move in a direction that provides the most ecologically sustainable future for its citizens.
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Since our inception in 2004, Global Footprint Network has invited organizations with shared goals to partner with us in strengthening the Footprint and enhancing its value as a catalyst for sustainability. We began with just 12 founding partners and have expanded to well over 80 organizations with the common vision of ending overshoot.
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The Charles University Environment Center, a Global Footprint Network partner, is organizing a ConAccount international conference entitled “Urban metabolism: measuring the ecological city”. The conference, which will include a section on measuring the Ecological Footprint of cities, will take place in Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic on 11-12 September 2008. The organizers have announced a call for abstracts, due on 15 March. For more information on the event, see the conference website.
Global Footprint Network partner WWF Cymru has launched an ambitious ‘One Planet Wales’ Campaign to move Welsh citizens towards high quality, low Footprint lives – with the goal of living within the means of one planet by 2050. Central to the campaign is the recently released One Planet Wales report, authored by WWF Cymru and the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology, University of Manchester. The report outlines the path forward to reach the 75% reduction in Wales’ Ecological Footprint that will be required to meet the 2050 target.
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Global Footprint Network and the Ecological Footprint recently played a prominent role at Clima Latino, the largest conference on climate change ever held in Latin America. Hosted by the Community of Andean Nations (Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and Bolivia), the Republic of Ecuador, and the Ecuadorian cities of Quito and Guayaquil, the conference was attended by 1550 participants from 40 countries. Held consecutively in the two cities from 15-18 October, 2007, Global Footprint Network was represented by its Senior Scientist Steve Goldfinger, who gave a well-received plenary presentation and helped lead two workshops.
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GDP is the most recognized indicator in the world, but a country’s high GDP does not always mean that its people are doing well. This is the reason that over 500 high-level economic, social and environmental experts met at the historic Beyond GDP International Conference in Brussels in late November. The European Commission, European Parliament, Club of Rome, OECD and WWF hosted this high-level conference with the objectives of clarifying which indices are most appropriate to measure progress, and how these can best be integrated into the decision-making process and taken up by public debate. The Ecological Footprint was featured as a central alternative to the GDP at the conference, most notably in a keynote address by WWF’s President and former minister of Nigeria, Emeka Anyaoku.
The Scottish Government announced this November that it will use the Ecological Footprint as one of its performance measures as part of its innovative National Performance Framework. The Framework provides a unified vision and quantifiable benchmarks against which the government’s priorities are measured.
One of Scottland’s goals is to “… reduce the local and global environmental impact of our consumption and production “and to ‘reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050’. The Local Footprints Project, a Global Footprint Network partner, has just issued a consumption based analysis of Scotland’s Carbon Footprint, based on its 32 local authorities.
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Global Footprint Network is pleased to announce the launch of a new research collaboration with the United Arab Emirates. The collaboration involves multiple stakeholders across the nation working together to improve the UAE’s National Footprint Accounts data and apply Ecological Footprint analysis to national policy in order to create a resource-conscious and resource-efficient nation.
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A recent UNEP report states that many of the major threats to the planet, such as climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population, remain unresolved and are putting humanity at risk. The Division of Early Warning and Assessment of the United Nations Environment Programme released this information and more in their “UN GEO4 report,” the Global Environmental Outlook 2007.
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