WWF: Environmentální deficit ohrožuje prosperitu Evropy

As Europe’s environmental account plunges into the red, the European Union and its Member States urgently need to take a new development path that puts more emphasis on the planet’s finite resources.

In the week the European Heads of State and Government are due to endorse guiding principles on sustainable development, WWF has published a new report showing that the twenty-five EU members have run up an environmental deficit of 220 per cent of their biological capacity. This means that Europeans now rely on the resources of the rest of the world to make up their increasing ecological deficit.

“Economic growth at the expense of depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation simply shifts the problem to other parts of the world," said Tony Long, Director of the WWF European Policy Office.

"Reducing European pressure on nature is therefore essential for Europe’s prosperity and its credibility as an international leader for sustainable development.”

Europe’s consumption levels have to be met by importing natural resources, such as wood, metals or fish, from other countries. But, unlike any responsible business that carefully records its spending and income, Europe has so far not kept track of its ecological spending.

The WWF report measures the EU Ecological Footprint, which compares people’s use of nature with nature’s ability to regenerate. With 7 per cent of the world population, the EU uses 17 per cent of the world resources supply. Its Ecological Footprint is 2.2 times as large as its own biological capacity, a figure that has risen by almost 70 per cent since 1961.

The Ecological Footprint of all EU countries is above the world’s sustainable average. EU countries with the highest demand per person are Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Ireland, and France, using between three and four times the worldwide average biological capacity available per person. Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland have the lowest demand, but are still using about twice the average amount of resources available per person.

WWF argues that if the EU wants to be competitive in the short and long term, it is time to build a “smart economy” that decouples economic growth from resource consumption. This could be done by giving higher priority to investments in ecosystems, granting EU funds conditional on the protection of nature, and developing certification systems to ensure the sustainability of product manufacturing and resource use.

As energy consumption is a major cause of the EU’s Ecological Footprint, moving from a fossil fuel economy to renewable energy would be a key way of reducing EU environmental deficit. Other measures that could be taken include eliminating perverse subsidies that have adverse social, economic and environmental effects, and ensuring that development and aid policy is coherent with other policies, particularly environment.

“The longer European leaders ignore the growing environmental deficit, the more expensive the investment required to correct it will be and the greater the risk that critical ecosystems will be eroded beyond the point at which they can easily recover”, added Long.


NOTES:

• The introduction of the report “Europe 2005 – The Ecological Footprint” is signed by the José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

• The EU Heads of State and Government are due to adopt a declaration on guiding principles for sustainable development during the European Council, scheduled for 16-17 June 2005.

• The report was written with the support of Global Footprint Network, an international organization committed to building a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological Footprint tool.