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A startling new WWF study has revealed that people living in Hong Kong currently use twice as many resources as residents in China, more than double the sustainable level.
To feed the vibrant city’s massive demand for natural resources, and absorb the CO2 emitted, residents need an area of land and sea larger than 250 Hong Kong’s, an incredible seven-fold increase since 1965.
According to Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world.
In light of the study’s damning conclusions, Hong Kong is being urged to develop a comprehensive low carbon energy strategy to reduce its escalating ecological deficit. Speaking about the findings, Dr Andy Cornish, Director of Conservation WWF Hong Kong said, “Hong Kong is fortunate in having financial resources to transform into a truly modern city where we can live well on a modest ecological footprint.”
The Hong Kong economy has traditonally been reliant on high levels of imports to support its status as a global financial powerhouse. However, in a climate of growing worldwide energy and resource scarcity, it is in the city’s best interest to move towards a more sustainable growth trajectory.
Image Credit – laszlo-photo via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license
Makes me sick. We need to redesign economic modal to discourage pointless consumption and downsize. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few billion less people on the planet too. We could all number off, odd, even, odd, even then toss a coin to see which half gets to fix this mess and which can go to sleep for the greater good.
I’m not surprised. Even back in the 80’s (when I worked there briefly) all the kids were out shopping till 3 in the morning for all the hot new gizmos. It’s a shopaholics heaven.