2016

The per capita Ecological Footprint¹ for 186 countries has been released for licensing by ‘Global Footprint Network’ (Public Data Package – Free Download). The total national Footprint without the weighty carbon Footprint² is used as an ‘Indicator’ in ClimatePositions. Now 15 additional small countries have full data and thus calculation of Climate Debt for the first time. The per capita Climate Debt of these countries are listed below. Brunei, Luxembourg and Equatorial Guinea enter top-ten of the worst performing countries among the previous 148 countries (see the ‘Ranking’ by January 2016).

The estimated Global Ecological Footprint equaled 1.6 Planet in the data-year 2012 (release-year 2016). The 163 countries listed below all have full data in ClimatePositions and 95 of the countries have Climate Debt. The table ranks the countries on Ecological Footprint per capita and is read like this: Luxembourg has the largest Ecological Footprint (15.82 gha³) and the 9th largest Footprint without carbon (3.16 gha). The latter value is used as an indicator in ClimatePositions and it includes 1) Built-up Land, 2) Cropland, 3) Grazing Land, 4) Forest Land and 5) Fishing Ground, all allocated to the consumption components of Food, Shelter, Mobility, Goods and Services.

The average Ecological Footprint of the listed countries is 3.25 gha and 1.43 gha (without carbon), respectively.

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¹Ecological Footprint is a measure of how much area of biologically productive land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb the waste it generates. Because trade is global, an individual or country’s Footprint includes land or sea from all over the world. Ecological Footprint, or Footprint, generally refers to the Ecological Footprint of consumption.

²The carbon Footprint is 60% of the world’s total Ecological Footprint.

³Global hectare (gha) is the accounting unit for the Ecological Footprint and biocapacity accounts. A global hectare is a biologically productive hectare with world average biological productivity for a given year. Global hecares are needed because different land types have different productivities. A global hectare of, for example, cropland, would occupy a smaller area than pasture land. Because world productivity varies slightly from year to year, the value of a global hectare may change from year to year.

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Global Footprint Network: ‘http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/blog/national_footprint_accounts_2016_carbon_makes_up_60_of_worlds_footprint‘

Global Footprint Network (Public Data Package – Free Download): ‘http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/licenses1/‘

Global Footprint Network Index (Glossary): ‘http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/glossary/#Ecologicalfootprint‘

ClimatePositions: ‘Ecological Footprint updates 2014 (152 countries)’: ‘https://climatepositions.com/ecological-footprint-updates-2014-152-countries/‘

Drawing (Footprint) by Claus Andersen, 2016.