EU living beyond its environmental means, says WWF

Nov 19, 2007, 11:51 GMT

Brussels - The European Union is living far beyond its environmental means, with potentially disastrous consequences, a study released Monday by global environmental group WWF concluded.

EU economic growth has 'masked an increasing toll that Europe is taking on the planet's well-being' and 'doubled the ecological pressure on the planet in the past 30 years,' the report said.

The study analysed the environmental impact of the EU's 27 member states by calculating how much land area is needed to produce each country's food, energy, timber, consumer goods and waste disposal - a sum known as the national 'environmental footprint.'

It then compared that footprint with the actual useable land area available to each country for food, energy and goods production and waste disposal - its so-called 'biocapacity.'

And it concluded that the EU, in the past 40 years, has more than doubled its environmental footprint, while its biocapacity has remained virtually unchanged - meaning that it is effectively exporting its environmental impact to third countries.

'If all the world's citizens lived as Europeans, we would need more than two and a half planets to provide the necessary resources, absorb our wastes, and leave some capacity for wild species,' the report said.

Spain has more than doubled its environmental footprint per head of population since 1971, while France's has grown by some 60 per cent - a rate of growth which is simply not sustainable, WWF said.

'What we currently measure as development is a long way away from the EU and world's stated aim of sustainable development... It is as if we spent our money without realizing that we are liquidating the planet's capital,' WWF President Chief Emeka Anyaoku said.

Only three EU states - Sweden, Finland and Latvia - currently have a footprint which is smaller than their biocapacity. All three are characterized by low population density, large areas of forest and heavy use of hydro-electric power.

And the rate at which the EU's environmental impact on other countries is rising, coupled with the growing local impact in many of those countries, means that it is only a matter of time before the world's environmental resources are exhausted, the report said.

'We are living beyond our means... The choices each of us makes today will shape the possibilities for the generations that follow us,' WWF Director-General James P. Leape concluded.