Taiwan’s Ecological Footprint, 2012-2018

Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, Taiwan

^* Corresponding author: yungjaanlee@gmail.com

Abstract

The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a measurement broadly adopted by the international community to measure the progress toward sustainability. Taiwan’s EF methods refer to the annual reports of the Global Footprint Network (GFN). Therefore, the calculation method closely follows international trends and is updated accordingly. Since the first calculation of Taiwan’s EF in 1998, Taiwan’s EF has been revised several times. At present, the EF from 1994 to 2011 can be obtained. The purpose of this study is to update Taiwan’s EF from 2012 to 2018. This study divides the biologically productive lands into six categories. Since there are two different data sources for fishing grounds and carbon emissions, Taiwan’s EF can be calculated with four different results. Overall, Taiwan’s EF shows a slow downward trend from 2012 to 2018. Furthermore, Taiwan’s carbon footprint accounted for about 70% of the EF, followed by the cropland footprint, which accounted for about 20% of the EF. Compared with global trends, Taiwan’s carbon footprint is about 10% higher than the global carbon footprint, indicating that Taiwan’s carbon emissions are higher than the global average. With the global emphasis on carbon reduction, Taiwan needs to focus on improving carbon emissions.