Abstract
According to the 2011 edition of the National Footprint Accounts (NFA) published by the Global Footprint Network (GFN), humankind consumed the resources and services of 1.5 planets in 2008; the corresponding number in 1961 was 0.7 planets. North Americans have an ecological footprint of 8.7 global hectares per person whereas Africans have a footprint of only 1.4 global hectares per person. The global mean biological capacity is only 1.8 global hectares per person so human beings are overshooting ecological resources. The ecological footprint measures the resources that are consumed by humans from the biosphere, and serves as an index of the sustainability of development. The NFA includes the ecological footprints of over 200 countries and regions, but not Taiwan. Hence, Taiwan must establish and update its own ecological footprint databases. Ecological footprint is one indicator of the sustainability of development, and can be compared across nations. This study extends previous studies by analyzing Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011. With reference to the ecological footprint accounts of the Global Footprint Network and the Taiwan’s ecological footprint analysis for 1997–2007, this study presents Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011. Most of the data that are used herein are taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Energy Agency, Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture and Taiwan’s National Development Council. The results thus obtained reveal that Taiwan’s ecological footprint from 2008–2011 exceeded that from 1997–2007. To respond to this trend toward un-sustainable development and to help Taiwan move toward sustainability, carbon reduction and energy saving policies should be implemented to effectively manage Taiwan’s ecological resources.
Highlights
Human activities continuously change land coverage and the atmosphere; they directly and indirectly influence the global energy balance, and cause climate change [1]
Bueno et al [3] found that various investigations of the effect of climate change on small Caribbean islands emphasize the loss of tourism and damage to infrastructure, which will reduce the economies of these islands by 10%
The ecological footprint is a powerful indicator of the sustainability of development, as it considers the dynamics that are associated with the pressure that is exerted on the environment by the use of resources as inputs and various outputs [15]
Summary
Human activities continuously change land coverage and the atmosphere; they directly and indirectly influence the global energy balance, and cause climate change [1]. Humans are slowly coming to understand that the issue of climate change must be considered with an eye to establishing a consensus around sustainable development. The global ecological deficit has increased rapidly over recent years, suggesting that overexploitation by human beings has overloaded the environment. Humans must address this issue and act to improve the sustainability of urban and rural development. Lee and Chen [9] examined Taiwan’s ecological footprint and attempted to calculate the ecological footprint in 1997 Since they did not take into account the equivalence factor [8], the ecological footprint that they estimated was inaccurate. This study extends the important results of studies of Taiwan’s ecological footprint in 1994–2007 and updates the national ecological footprint accounts to enable the trend in the ecological footprint from 2008–2011 to be analyzed
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