From this Thursday until New Year’s Eve, humanity will live “on credit”, environmentalists complain: What will be renewable in a year is already gone. This so-called Earth Overshoot Day comes earlier every year.
Forests, water, farmland: Humanity consumes more natural resources every year than the earth can replenish. From the so-called Earth Overshoot Day this Thursday, people are claiming more of it than they actually have at their disposal for this year. This was the result of calculations by the Global Footprint Network based in the USA and Switzerland.
“From Thursday we will be living with our earth on credit,” said Christoph Bals from the environmental and development organization Germanwatch. “Currently, humanity consumes arithmetically 1.75 earths, we burden the poor today and the following generations in particular with the consequences of this overexploitation – and with increasing intensity.” Olaf Bandt, chairman of the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND), said the climate was out of joint. “We must immediately limit the dramatic effects of the climate crisis and global species extinction.”
Both organizations see companies and politicians as primarily responsible. “The federal government must initiate clear legal requirements that take account of the planetary boundaries: for resource protection, energy efficiency and soil protection,” said Bandt. Germanwatch sees Germany and the European Union as having a “particular responsibility” to reduce the ecological footprint. To this end, the federal government should get more involved in the negotiations on the EU climate package. “The package should ensure, for example, that aviation finally has to buy emissions trading certificates for its full climate impact.”
Industrialized countries in particular are part of the problem, said Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD). Germany has already taken an important step with the supply chain law. This requires companies to ensure that human rights or environmental standards are observed when purchasing goods. It is now important to include environmental protection and climate more closely at the European level in the supply chain law, said Schulze. “In Europe, we can no longer allow ourselves to import environmental destruction and human rights violations into other parts of the world with our consumption.”
Deforestation is a global problem – the picture shows a sawmill in Brazil surrounded by charred and deforested areas.
(Photo: Andre Penner/dpa)
This year’s Earth Overshoot Day is earlier than last year. According to Germanwatch, consumption exceeded available resources for the first time in 1970, and by 2000 Earth Overshoot Day had moved from December to September. Since 2018, Earth Overshoot Day has fallen at the end of July – with the exception of 2020, when the corona pandemic briefly reduced resource consumption. Last year it was dated July 29, a day later than this year. Viewed individually, Germany already used up the reserves of natural resources it was entitled to for this year at the beginning of May. If all countries were to economize like Germany, not only 1.75, but about three earths would be necessary.