*Back to square one. World’s “Overtaking Day” falls this year on Thursday, July 29. Either the same day as in 2018 or 2019, the last two years pre-Covid-19. This day of the overrun, calculated each year by
Global Footprint Network, an international research institute established in California, corresponds to the date on which humanity consumed all the natural resources that the planet can renew in a year.
In other words, humanity will live the last five months of 2021 on credit, and we would need the equivalent of 1.7 planet Earth to meet our current needs.
“A constant methodology which makes it a relevant indicator”
To determine this date, the Global Footprint Network is based on three million statistical data from 200 countries, specifies the
WWF France. On the one hand, the think-tank looks at the ecological footprint of humanity. “That is to say the quantity of natural resources [terres agricoles, réserves halieutiques, forêts…] which are necessary, on a global scale, to satisfy our food needs, our wood needs, ensure the development of cities … And, above all, absorb all the greenhouse gas emissions that humanity produces each year », Begins Arnaud Gauffier, WWF program director. On the other hand, Global Footprint Network is interested in the real biocapacity of the Earth, that is to say the quantity of renewable resources that it is able to regenerate in a year.
All these indicators are reduced to a common unit, expressed in global hectares. By dividing the biocapacity of the Earth by the ecological footprint of humanity, then by multiplying the result by the number of days in a year, we come across this “day of overshoot”. ” The method is not perfect, which is normal for an indicator that aggregates so much data, continues Arnaud Gauffier. On the other hand, its strength is to apply the same methodology from one year to the next, which makes it a very interesting indicator for seeing trends. “
An ephemeral decline in 2020
In short: are we on the right track? No, if we judge by this long tumble on the day of the overtaking, “a sign that we are always consuming all the resources that the planet can produce in a year”, recalls Véronique Andrieux, director of the WWF. In 1971, this red line was crossed on December 22, a few days before the end of the year. It was November 4 in 1980, October 4 in 1995, August 7 in 2010 … before stabilizing around late July-early August since 2017.
Only the year 2020 came out of this curve. The day of the overrun had moved back three weeks, to fall on August 22. A historic reversal. And for good reason: “It is the only time that the day of the overtaking has moved back in the calendar”, indicates Véronique Andrieux. But difficult to congratulate. “We felt that this decline is only temporary, strongly linked to the drop in greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic,” continues the director of WWF. It was therefore essential that the recovery plans, at the global level, be aligned with our climate objectives and give pride of place to renewable energies. It was an opportunity to “reset” our economy so as not to return to pre-Covid levels. “
CO2 emissions which are on the rise again and forests are worrying
Magnifying glass ? July 20, The International Energy Agency (IEA) had raised the alert after calculating that only
2% of post-Covid recovery plans have been devoted to sustainable energy projects to date. The agency anticipates a new record of CO2 emissions in 2023. And these are already on the rise with the recovery, which largely explains this return to square one of the “day of the exceedance”. Carbon footprint [la quantité de gaz à effet de serre générée par les activités humaines] represents, alone, 60% of the total ecological footprint of humanity, we remind WWF. The Global footprint network indicates that at the end of 2020, the total greenhouse gas emissions reported were 5.8% lower than in 2019. Taking into account the most recent data from the Global Carbon project , the think-tank anticipates a 6.6% increase in the carbon footprint for 2021 compared to last year.
Beyond this unscrewing global ecological footprint, WWF draws attention to other indicators that are not looking good. On the side, this time, terrestrial biocapacities. More specifically forests, essential natural carbon sinks since they absorb part of the CO2 emissions emitted by human activities. But they do so less and less as the rate of deforestation accelerates. At the end of March, the annual report of Global Forest Watch, based on satellite data, recorded, for 2020,
destruction of 4.2 million hectares of tropical primary forests, or 12% more than the previous year. “These losses were especially recorded in the Amazon, especially in its south-eastern part,” explains Véronique Andrieux. If we take Brazil alone, 1.1 million hectares were destroyed in 2020, a record since 2008. ”Arnaud Gauffier lists other fronts with high rates of deforestation last year. “The Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Bolivia. “
The European Union has its share of responsibility
European forests are not at their best either, “even if the forest area has increased in recent centuries,” continues the program director of WWF. But we also have to talk about quality. However, we have planted many forests that are natural in name only. These are monocultures of trees, focused on economic exploitation, which do not have much interest in terms of carbon capture, since these forests are cut very quickly and are not well armed in the face of climate change. . “At the end of June, in its last report, the High Council for the Climate (HCC) was thus concerned about the poor condition of French forests, which” have only captured three quarters of the amount of CO2 that had expected
the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC) between 2015 and 2019. “
Finally, the European Union is also helping to accelerate deforestation in the tropics through its imports. These account for 16% of deforestation linked to global trade, making the EU the world’s second-largest destroyer of tropical forests behind China and ahead of the United States, the WWF calculated in a report in mid-April. “The crops most at risk of deforestation that we import into France are soybeans [importé principalement du Brésil pour l’alimentation du bétail], Palm oil [importée de plus en plus pour être transformée en carburant *], cocoa, rubber, coffee… ”, explains Arnaud Gauffier.
* 75% of the volume of palm oil consumed in France is consumed to make agrofuels (kerozene or diesel), specifies Arnaud Gauffier. It’s 50% in Europe.