More than 80% of people in the world today live in countries that demand more from nature than their ecosystems can regenerate. Their country's ecological budgets are in the red. We know this from ecological footprint accounting. The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature and can be compared to biocapacity, which is the productivity of a region's ecological assets.
China has the largest total ecological footprint, making up nearly 24% of the world's population. percent of the world's total ecological footprint. However, China's footprint per person is only 3.6 global hectares.
By comparison, the footprint per person of the United States is much larger, at 8.6 global hectares. Brazil, meanwhile, has an ecological reserve thanks to its immense forests. Brazil has a biocapacity per person of nearly 8.9 global hectares and a footprint per person of 3 global hectares. Carbon emissions are the largest component of the ecological footprint.
The footprint also includes consumption of food, timber, fiber such as cotton, and use of land for cities. Global Footprint Network calculates the footprint of more than 2 million people 200 countries and regions from 1961 to the present. Find out if your country's ecological budget is in the red.
Visit our Footprint Explorer open data platform at data.footprintnetwork.org