A country's ecological footprint is basically the area of land that would be required to provide for the country's consumption of natural resources, and to dispose of the waste they produce. At present, the world as a whole uses up more than double the resources it can afford to be sustainable, and the industrially- developed nations account for far more than their share. If things go as they have been going since 1961, when the concept was first employed, we will need two planets by 2030, and three by 2050, by which time there will be about nine billion of us. If everyone consumed as much as Belgium, we would need 4.4 planets. The new earth-like planet Gliese 581c discovered recently is more than 20 light years away: at current speeds of space travel it would take 766,000 years to get there.
The three countries above Belgium in the rankings are United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Denmark. The first two owe their leading position to the extraction of petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Denmark and Belgium combine high consumption with a relatively small landmass, reflecting a low bio-capacity per head of population. Belgium's requirements, about eight hectares per person, are on a par with those of the United States.
Last year, Belgium was ranked in 17th place, where Norway now sits. Since then, though, the report has added the weight of trading balances to its index. As Belgium imports a great deal of energy - intensive products - like bananas from Central America or cut flowers from Kenya - its footprint has grown bigger.
WWF Belgium offers a number of solutions: increased energy efficiency and a move to renewable energy sources would help, said the group's spokesperson Sabine Leemans, but Belgium is too small a country to ever be able to increase its capacity significantly. "We're going to have to consume less," she said. According to the report, diet is a good place to start. The report Energy-saving measures like solar panels will not be enough, the report says draws up a simulation of what would happen if we all ate the way they do in Malaysia - where the diet is low in meat and dairy foods - two of the most energy-intensive food products that exist. That alone would mean we would need 1.3 planets by 2050, instead of the current estimate of three.
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