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Britain starts eating the planet on Sunday 16 April
New research reveals Britain’s rising global dependence as the nation goes into ecological debt on Easter Sunday
New research reveals that on Sunday 16 April the UK in effect stops relying on its own natural resources to support itself and starts to ‘live off’ the rest of the world. At current UK levels of consumption our ‘ecological debt day’ – the day we begin living beyond our environmental means – falls only a third of the way through the year and has crept ever earlier over the last four decades.
These are the findings of a new report from nef (the new economics foundation) which exposes for the first time a sharp rise in how the UK depends on the rest of world, and how the burden of the Britain’s high-consuming lifestyle is exported internationally.
The UK Interdependence report: How the world sustains the nation’s lifestyles and the price it pays, maps out the depth and breadth of our increasing interdependence and the price the planet pays. The clearest demonstration of this comes from looking at the day in a typical calendar year when we start to live off the rest of the world. The report shows that:
- At current levels of natural resource use in the UK, the average person goes into ecological debt on 16 April. As our total consumption grows, the day on which we begin consuming beyond our environmental means moves earlier in the year. In 1961 it was 9 July. By 1981 Britain’s ecological debt day was reached almost two months earlier on 14 May.
- The world as a whole is also living beyond its ecosystems’ capacity to regenerate itself – leading to long-term, overall environmental degradation - and goes into ecological debt on 23 October.
“If the whole world had wanted to share UKlifestyles in 1961, the Earth would just have managed with its available resources – one planet would have been enough,” says Andrew Simms, lead author of the report and nef policy director, “Today, if the whole world wanted lifestyles like those enjoyed in the UK, we would need 3.1 planets.”
In a comprehensive overview of the UK’s place in the international system the UK Interdependence report reveals how the nation is being woven into an ever closer and more complicated economic, cultural and social fabric, with both positive and negative consequences. Amongst several examples of economic and environmental inefficiency it shows that:
Our ecologically wasteful trading system is costing the earth: As oil prices rise and pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of climate change increases, much of our trade seems highly inefficient.
Identical products are being shipped backwards and forwards with heavy environmental costs. For example, in 2004:
- We imported 465 tonnes of gingerbread and exported almost the same volume, 460 tonnes
- We sent 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes to Germany, and brought in 1,500 tonnes of fresh potatoes back from the same place
- We imported 44,000 tonnes of frozen boneless chicken cuts and exported 51, 000 tonnes of fresh boneless chicken
- We sent 10,200 tonnes of milk and cream to France, and imported 9,900 tonnes from France
- We imported 391,432 tonnes of chocolate and exported 170,652 tonnes
UKfood self-sufficiency has hit the lowest point in half a century: The UK’s food self-sufficiency has been falling steadily since the mid-1990s. According to the most recent statistics available, our domestic production of indigenous food now appears to have hit its lowest point for half a century, making us increasingly dependent on imports.
UKenergy independence ended in 2004: The UK has huge untapped renewable energy sources, which, combined with a shift to more decentralised energy generation coupled with other efficiency measures could radically reduce the amount of energy needed. But because of continuing dependence on fossil fuels, rising demand, and inefficient supply, the UK lost its energy independence in 2004, and now relies on imports to balance supply and demand.
UKdependence on international trade now accounts for half of GDP: For the last 30 years the UK economy has grown increasingly interdependent with the rest of the world. Since the mid-1970s international trade has made up a growing share of the UK’s income. Trade now accounts for nearly half the value of UK GDP, and the ratio of trade to GDP rose 77 per cent in the three decades up to 2004.
“The UK’s growing interdependence with the rest of the world is a fact and an opportunity. But we are abusing it. By living so far beyond our environmental means and running up ecological debts we commit two wrongs. We deny millions who go without the chances for a better life and we put the planet’s life support mechanisms in peril,” adds nef policy director Andrew Simms,
“On one level there is absolutely nothing wrong with importing goods and services to meet our needs; but our eyes are bigger than our planet. If the whole world understandably wanted to copy our levels of consumption, we would need the resources of more than three planets like Earth. And, we only have one. Our economy and way of life need to make contact with the real world before we eat accidentally eat it whole.” The report also reveals some more positive aspects of our increasing global interdependence such as:
UKreliance on the global trade in sporting muscle, and our love of foreign food and films: On our broader cultural horizons, ethnic restaurants provide 38 per cent of the UK fast-food market, most being Indian and Chinese. And, even though film and television imports from the US dominate our cultural trade balance, between 2000 and 2004 there were still 654 foreign-language films released in the UK, making up one-third of all releases. As entertainment sport is one of our biggest cultural industries. But self-sufficiency at the top of our most economically powerful game, football, is also at low ebb. In October 2005, half of the players in the English Premiership came from outside the UK. In one team, Arsenal, 85 per cent of players were non-UK.
But, there is a price to be paid by the rest of the world. We are becoming increasingly reliant on overseas workers to staff our schools and hospitals draining some of the world’s poorest counties of vital human resources. And, while the UK government has proudly announced increases in overseas aid, this has been dwarfed by money from developing countries deposited in UK banks:
UKdependence on health and education workers from poor countries: Contrary to the popular myth of the UK as a soft-touch for health tourists, the UK’s health service increasingly relies on attracting a growing number of health professionals from around the world. Trained at public expense in their countries of origin, many come from very poor countries whose own health services can ill afford to lose them. New admissions to the nursing register from abroad trebled last year compared with 1998–99 and came from Malawi, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Botswana, and Ghana, among other countries.
The UK: important aid donor or a haven for money on the run? The UK Government has proudly championed campaigns for international poverty reduction. Its own aid budget has gone from $4.5 billion in 2000 to $6.2 billion in 2004 (not including technical assistance). But another barely noticed trend suggests a more complex picture. Money from developing countries deposited in UK banks surged by over $115 billion in 2005 alone to reach a total of $385 billion, raising intriguing questions. The rise in deposits since 2000 from just one country, Nigeria, is bigger than the growth in total UK aid over much of the same period. Different factors are likely to be at play in each country but, generally, both the creeping removal of controls over the movement of money around the world, and capital flight are probable factors.
“Nobody can look at the figures in this report and deny that we’re living in an interdependent world ecologically, socially, environmentally. But our politics and culture are in denial with potentially catastrophic consequences. The first ever Interdependence Day event on July 1 this year will give people a chance to look at the world afresh – throwing light on new thinking that has the power to connect politics and culture with the interdependent world we’re living in.” adds Joe Smith, of the Open University and co-ordinator of the Interdependence Day project which the report is part of.
The rest of the report draws a picture of the state of the UK’s interdependence early in a new millennium. Recent fears about bird flu remind us how inescapable our interdependence is. What emerges is mixed. At times it is troubling in terms of the burden the UK puts on the rest of the world, and because of the frequently bizarre and whimsical reasons for us doing so.
But it is also a reassuring picture of how life in the UK is immeasurably enriched by the cultures that flow to it. It is a sobering reminder of how many of the services we depend on simply could not function without the skilled and unskilled workers who come from countries less comfortable than our own. Above all, it raises huge questions about how radically the UK’s patterns of interdependence will have to change if our economy and lifestyles are to become remotely sustainable. A positive future, it suggests, will only be guaranteed through a paradigm shift in government policy away from ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ economic competitiveness, towards the cooperation demanded by our inescapable interdependence.
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