Group issues grim diagnosis of planet's health 

With energy- and resource-consumption on the rise to meet the demand of a growing world population, "the ecosystem services upon which life depends are being stretched to the limit", warns the 2007-2008 Vital Signs report of the Worldwatch Institute, a research organisation based in Washington DC. 

The report, released on 13 September, tracks 44 global trends including food and resource consumption, energy use, transportation and environment. 

Global wood, steel and meat consumption have hit record levels, while soybean production (for animal feed) is displacing massive swathes of tropical forests, according to the report. Cereal production has also increased dramatically in response to rising living standards in developing countries such as India and China.

"The expanding global appetite for everything from everyday items such as eggs to major consumer goods such as automobiles is helping to drive climate change, endangering organisms both on land and in the sea," Worldwatch said in a press release.

Erik Assadourian, director of the Vital Signs project, is calling on the EU to put pressure on the US to commit "to reducing its total greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 in order to offset the global warming impacts of growing resource use". 

China and India are unlikely to sign up to any binding CO2 emissions reduction agreement without a strong US commitment, and "the EU may be the only entity that can make that happen", Assadourian said, in reference to a December meeting of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia. EU leaders are pushing for a global climate-change agreement with binding CO2 emissions reduction targets to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. 

But the US, which did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, is opposed to binding CO2 reduction targets and is calling instead for the development of more "clean" technologies in order to reduce emissions without compromising economic growth. US President George Bush is hosting a separate meeting of major economies in Washington DC on 27-28 September, designed to garner support for US plans in advance of the Bali meeting.

Meanwhile, parties to the Montreal Protocol on ozone protection are meeting in Montreal today (16 September) to discuss a possible earlier introduction of a global ban on hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), known to deplete the earth's ozone layer and thus to contribute to the 'greenhouse' effect.