杏吧原创

SHOULD big countries with a small population be allowed to produce more pollution than smaller ones with more people? Two provocative studies on measuring national 鈥渆cological footprints鈥� say they should, and the argument could soon be deployed in talks on a successor to the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

Their rationale is that large countries have more natural vegetation to absorb pollution, and more fields and forests to provide natural resources for the world. So they should be entitled to a larger ecological footprint than small, densely populated countries. That would be good news for the US, Australia, Canada, Russia and Brazil, but not so good for Japan, most European countries, China and India.

The proposal is likely to anger many environmentalists but, one author suggests, might be the only way to drag the US, which refused to sign up to Kyoto, into talks on emissions reductions. Last week British prime minister Tony Blair, while visiting New Zealand, called for a 鈥渘ew framework鈥� to break what he describes as a deadlock in post-Kyoto negotiations.

The idea of measuring the ecological footprint of nations has become increasingly popular as a way of holding countries to account for their environmental impacts. The footprint is an estimate of the land used to sustain a population. Its main components are land directly built on; the fields, forests and mines employed at home and abroad to meet consumer needs; and the notional amount of land needed to absorb pollutants like carbon dioxide.

International emissions league tables are usually drawn up on the basis of each nation鈥檚 total footprint divided by its population. This puts the super-consuming US at the top, with almost 10 hectares of land needed to supply each American. Australia is close behind, requiring almost 8 hectares per citizen. Western European states and Japan require between 5 and 6, China less than 2 and India around 1 hectare.

The environment group WWF, which has pioneered footprint analysis, calculated two years ago that the total human footprint is 20 per cent greater than the planet鈥檚 biological capacity. This 鈥渙vershoot鈥�, it said, was causing mass extinctions and a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Now footprint analyst Geoff Hammond of the University of Bath, UK, writing in the UN journal Natural Resources Forum (vol 30, p 27), has compared the ecological footprints and biocapacity of individual nations. He suggests that countries with more biocapacity than their footprint are the good guys, irrespective of how large their footprint is. Those that overshoot their biocapacity are the villains.

A similar exercise was published in March by Redefining Progress, an organisation based in Oakland, California, devoted to ecological footprint analysis. 鈥淲hen a population鈥檚 footprint is smaller than available biocapacity, it is sustainable,鈥� says its author, Jason Venetoulis.

鈥淭here would be huge anger at the suggestion that the US and Bangladesh are equally to blame for global warming鈥�

The new focus dramatically changes the ecological league tables. Australia and Canada have two of the largest footprints in the world, but by Hammond鈥檚 reckoning that鈥檚 OK as their biocapacities are even larger. The US鈥檚 huge footprint is almost balanced by its large biocapacity, whereas Japan, with a per capita footprint half that of the US, has an overshoot of seven times the magnitude. Bangladesh, with one of the world鈥檚 smallest footprints but an even smaller biocapacity, overshoots by the same margin as the US.

Hammond says his work鈥檚 most immediate relevance could be to negotiations on greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal that till now has led the field, known as 鈥渃ontraction and convergence鈥�, would require national emissions to converge on a figure proportional to each country鈥檚 population. In effect, it would set a global target for each nation鈥檚 per capita carbon footprint. The scheme, which is the brainchild of Aubrey Meyer of the UK-based Global Commons Institute, has gained backing from the UK鈥檚 Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution and the German government鈥檚 Advisory Council on Global Change.

Hammond dismisses this formula as utopian, 鈥済iven the reluctance of the US to take even modest steps to reduce emissions鈥�, and suggests his scheme might stand a better chance. 鈥淟iving within national biocapacities might be something the US could eventually accept,鈥� he says.

Under the Kyoto protocol, countries are already allowed to offset their emissions with carbon absorbed by purpose-built 鈥渃arbon sink鈥� forests. The Hammond formula would go further, allowing them effectively to use the absorption by their entire landscapes to offset emissions.

There would, however, be huge anger at the unfairness of suggesting that, for instance, the US and Bangladesh were equally to blame for global warming. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe that biocapacity would be a reasonable basis for a post-Kyoto framework,鈥� says Jonathan Loh, who runs WWF鈥檚 footprint analysis, as it would produce vastly different targets for countries of very similar wealth.

Meanwhile, Meyer condemns the Hammond plan as naive and dangerous. 鈥淲hile appearing to be helpful and reasonable, it would be another means for the rich to bully the poor.鈥�