Sweden ‘one of world’s worst polluters’

According to the World Wildlife Fund Sweden is among the world's worst polluters. The WWF Living Planet report indicates that "humanity is using the planet's resources faster than they can be renewed and that populations of vertebrate species have declined by about one third since 1970."

Published: 25 October 2006 10:25 CEST

Sweden has one of the largest “ecological footprints” in the world. The WWF describes the term as follows:

“The footprint of a country includes all the cropland, grazing land, forest, and fishing grounds required to produce the food, fibre, and timber it consumes, to absorb the wastes emitted in generating the energy it uses, and to provide space for its infrastructure.”

Sweden leaves the eigth largest footprint per person. The United Arab Emirates tops the list, followed by the USA. They are followed by Nordic neighbours Finland.

Just behind Sweden, taking up the tenth and eleventh spots, are Norway and Denmark.

“The size of the Swedish footprint is partly a result of our transport and energy consumption. We drive our cars a lot,” Lars Kristoferson, secretary general of the WWF in Sweden, told news agency TT.