By August 1, five months before the end of the year, humanity will have used all the natural resources that our planet can regenerate in one year. Over the past three decades, Earth Overshoot Day has generally occurred earlier each year. In 2000, it fell on September 23, while this year it is 54 days earlier, reports Balkan Green Energy News.
According to calculations by the Global Footprint Network, humanity is consuming resources at a rate that would require almost two planets (1,7 Earths) to maintain balance.
Earth's excess day is calculated by dividing the planet's biocapacity (the amount of natural resources the Earth can regenerate in a year) by humanity's ecological footprint or projected consumption for the current year and multiplying by the number of days in the year.
The cost of global environmental overspending is becoming increasingly apparent
Environmental debt arises because we are overloading and depleting our natural capital, thereby jeopardizing the availability of resources for future generations.
"The costs of this global ecological overspending are becoming increasingly apparent in the form of deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The latter leads to climate change, more frequent extreme weather events and less food production," warns the Global Footprint Network.
As for the countries that Balkan Green Energy News tracks, Slovenia has been in environmental debt since April 25. It is followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina (May 9), Serbia (May 23), Greece (May 25), Croatia (May 28), Montenegro (May 30), Bulgaria (June 2) and Romania (July 10). Albania is not yet in debt, but will be from September 23rd.
Globally, Qatar was the first country to fall into the red zone this year, on February 11. Among the larger countries, Ecuador and Indonesia perform best - November 24. At the very end of 2024 are Guinea, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan, indicating that they are close to sustainable management of their natural resources.
Only about twenty countries, mostly extremely poor or with low population density, are excluded from the main list because they do not exceed their biocapacity. The best performers on the sustainability index are Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea and Côte d'Ivoire.
How to stop overconsumption?
Over the past three decades, Earth Overshoot Day has generally occurred earlier each year. For example, in 2000 it was on September 23, and this year it is 54 days earlier - on August 1.
An interesting parallel drawn by the Global Footprint Network shows the resource consumption in each year with the Summer Olympics.
In 1968, humanity was still using less than one Earth a year. By 1988, humanity was using 1,3 of the planet's worth of resources. By 2008, humans were already consuming resources at 1,6 times the sustainable rate.
Stopping the overconsumption of natural resources requires focus, innovation and diverse efforts.
Cutting carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels by 50% would push the date back three months.
Christoph Balls, political director of the climate organization Germanwatch, notes that there are indications that the burden will ease thanks to the use of renewable energy sources, energy storage, electric mobility and heat pumps.
"But these and other encouraging trends must be significantly accelerated to prevent irreversible climate tipping points and massive additional biodiversity losses," he stressed.
"Air travel is particularly harmful to the climate. However, over 80% of people never fly by plane, which means that a small fraction of the world's population is responsible for one of the main drivers of the climate crisis," explained Jacob Rohm, who is responsible for the climate-neutral mobility sector at Germanwatch .