Not a single country monitored by Climate Action Tracker
is on track to meet its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets. The United States, however, is one of the worst offenders. During the Biden administration, the country pledged to
reduce GHG emissions to 50 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. This “nationally determined contribution” (NDC) was a formal pledge to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Climate Action Tracker labels the U.S. government’s policies and actions as “highly insufficient” to meet its NDC. They estimate that the current U.S. administration will reduce GHG emissions by 19–30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Biden administration was on track to reduce GHG emissions by 29–39 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Neither administration has been on track to meet the pledged emissions targets. Yet, the United States is drifting even further from its goal. The Trump administration has slashed environmental and climate policies, including discarding emissions-reduction targets by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
But carbon emissions are just one aspect of a country’s ecological footprint, which also captures the footprint “components” of cropland, grazing land, built-up land, fishing grounds, and forest products. Using this more holistic measure, where can we say the United States is headed? And where does it need to go?
Beyond Emissions Reductions
An economic system designed to grow infinitely on the back of finite natural resources is a recipe for disaster. The ecological footprint enables a broader perspective than GHG-emissions measures, quantifying the relationship between economic activity and overall environmental impact.
Ecological footprint is the area needed to meet the demands of economic activity. This is measured in a unit called global hectares (gha), which is based on a global-average measure of productivity. The Ecological Footprint Initiative at York University produces ecological footprint data for every country from 1961 to 2025.
The U.S. ecological footprint of consumption was a monstrous 2.45 billion gha in 2025, equating to 7.05 gha per person. This is far beyond the global average ecological footprint of 2.52 gha per person. Since 1961, the U.S. total ecological footprint of consumption has been increasing at an average annual rate of 2.9 percent. There is a silver lining: The U.S. per-person ecological footprint of consumption has been decreasing. In 2000, it stood at 10.6 gha, 50 percent more than in 2025.
Projecting Ecological Footprint into the Future
It’s impossible to predict the future with certainty, but it is beneficial to create projections based on current behaviors. I estimated future ecological footprint values using United Nations (UN) population projections. Assuming the U.S. per-capita footprint declines at its 1961–2025 average rate, it would reach 7.0 gha in 2030 and 6.8 gha in 2050.
Scenario 1 is projected using the historical average between 1961 and 2025, and scenario 2 is projected using the historical average between 2000 and 2025. Click on the image to enlarge.
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In this first scenario, the total ecological footprint would be 2.49 billion gha in 2030 and 2.59 billion gha in 2050. Population growth would drive this increase.
It is important to recognize that the further into the future one projects, the less accurate the projections become. Additionally, the projections can change dramatically if I assume a different growth rate. The U.S. per-capita ecological footprint of consumption has declined more sharply since the 2000s. Assuming it declines at its 2000–2025 average rate, it would reach 6.5 gha in 2030 and 4.8 gha in 2050.
Depending on which assumptions I used, the results varied widely; therefore, they must be approached with caution. Innumerable factors influence the future, especially with ever-more rapid technological advances. While a techno-optimist might say these advances are the key to reducing our footprint, many of them entail more natural resource consumption.
How Far Off Course?
How much would the United States need to decrease its ecological footprint to reach its NDC target of 50 percent of 2005 GHG-emissions levels by 2030? For simplicity, let’s assume decreasing the country’s carbon footprint would entail a proportionate decrease in its other footprint components. After all, these components are deeply intertwined, in terms of source and solution. How effective will emissions reductions be at stopping ecological collapse if we continue to decimate other Earth systems?
The carbon component made up the largest share of the U.S. ecological footprint of consumption per person in 2025. Click on the image to enlarge.
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In 2005, the U.S. total ecological footprint of consumption was 3 billion gha. Cutting this in half by 2030 would require a footprint of 4.25 gha per person, based on UN population projections. Each current and future person in the United States would need to decrease their ecological footprint by 0.5 gha per year from 2026 to 2030. The actual average decrease since 2005 has been 0.17 gha per person per year.
Most of the reduction in ecological footprint would need to come from the carbon component. In 2025, this component accounted for 62 percent of an individual’s ecological footprint in the United States. What if the United States focused solely on GHG emissions and reduced only its carbon component to 50 percent of 2005 levels? What would the country’s overall ecological footprint look like in 2030?
Is Reducing the Carbon Footprint Enough?
I applied the United States’ NDC pledge only to carbon, projecting the other components according to 1961–2025 trends. In this scenario, total ecological footprint in 2030 would come to almost 2 billion gha, or 5.5 gha per person. Decreasing the carbon component would significantly reduce the ecological footprint. However, in all four scenarios presented, the 2030 U.S. footprint would be above the current world average per-person footprint of 2.52 gha.
Four footprint projections to 2030 based on different assumptions.
Click on the image to enlarge.
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While ecological footprint is the area needed to support the demands of economic activity, biocapacity is the area available to support those demands. U.S. biocapacity in 2025 was 3.68 gha per person. In all four scenarios, the country’s ecological footprint would still exceed its biocapacity. At a global scale, the picture is even bleaker: Global biocapacity comes to 1.47 gha per person.
Of course, people across the United States lead different lifestyles, and not everyone needs to reduce their ecological footprint to the same extent. Often, people with higher incomes consume more resources than people with lower incomes. This disproportionate consumption is a climate-justice issue felt between and within countries. Researchers analyzed the relationship between high-income groups’ consumption and extreme climate events. They found that the emissions “of the wealthiest ten percent within the United States and China led to a two- to threefold increase in heat extremes across vulnerable regions such as the Amazon.”
This is why disaggregated ecological footprint assessments are valuable: The results can pinpoint where environmental impact is greatest and what we should change to achieve the greatest reduction. Local ecological footprint assessments are especially useful for identifying behavior changes that reduce an individual’s footprint most effectively.
Reducing Impact and Maintaining Quality of Life
How can the United States cut its ecological footprint in half while maintaining or increasing quality of life? To answer that question, it’s helpful to compare the U.S. footprint-to-wellbeing ratio to that of other countries. The Happy Planet Index does just that, ranking countries based on the ratio of their average life expectancy and wellbeing to their average ecological footprint. The United States is ranked 105th out of 147 countries. This suggests “that its material and financial resources are not being translated efficiently into sustainable wellbeing for its people.”
U.S. life expectancy is 79.6 years, ranking 36th among 147 countries. For wellbeing, the Happy Planet Index uses data from a Gallup poll that asks people about their subjective life satisfaction. U.S. wellbeing ranks 18th out of 147 countries. Clearly, the reason for the United States’ abysmal Happy Planet Index ranking is its ecological footprint of consumption; it ranks 127th out of 147 countries.
This lack of efficiency in translating wealth into wellbeing indicates that the country needs not only to reduce its resource consumption, but also to redistribute it. Prominent degrowth scholar Jason Hickel argues that GDP growth without redistribution of resources works against social progress, not for it. Ecological economists have found that income and consumption are not the primary factors that enhance quality of life. Instead, quality of life improves with more public services, such as public health programs. Degrowth scholars and activists believe wellbeing can increase when people work less, which some argue also reduces carbon emissions.
This research offers glimmers of hope that it is possible to maintain a happy life while reducing economic activity to within sustainable biological limits. The United States has a long way to go to reduce the national ecological footprint to 50 percent of 2005 levels. And it needs to go even further than that. However, the country is very slowly moving in that direction, as the per-capita ecological footprint decreases. It’s up to civil society—equipped with empirical evidence—to build coalitions that push governments and industry to make the transition toward sustainable wellbeing for all happen faster.
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