The consumption of natural resources by humans so fast that our planet cannot keep up, according to the biennial Living Planet Report.
The WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network report warned that “under a ‘business as usual’ scenario, the outlook is serious: even with modest United Nations projections for population growth, consumption and climate change, by 2030 humanity will need the capacity of two Earths to absorb carbon-dioxide waste and keep up with natural resource consumption.”
“If everyone in the world lived like an average resident of the United States or the United Arab Emirates, then a biocapacity equivalent to more than 4.5 Earths would be required to keep up with humanity’s consumption and CO2 emissions,” the report said.
“Conversely, if everyone lived like the average resident of India, humanity would be using less than half the planet’s biocapacity,” it added. The world’s Ecological Footprint, which tracks the area of biologically productive land and water required to provide the renewable resources people use and includes the space needed for infrastructure and vegetation to absorb waste carbon dioxide, has doubled since 1966.
“This growth in ecological overshoot is largely attributable to the carbon footprint, which has increased 11-fold since 1961 and by just over one-third since 1998,” the report added. India is one of the 10 countries where over half the world’s biocapacity is found: Brazil has the most biocapacity, followed in decreasing order by China, the United States, the Russian Federation, India, Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Argentina and France. However, Indians have the lowest share of biocapacity in the world.