This Thursday, May 5 marks the “overshoot day” for France. If the whole world consumed today like the French, it would take 2.9 Earths to meet the needs of humans, warns the WWF.
If all of humanity lived like the French, it would have consumed on May 5 all the resources that the planet can renew in one year, announced WWF, estimating that France could push back this “overshoot day” by 25 days. here 2027. Each year, the American NGO Global Footprint Network calculates the “overshoot day” for the world -July 29 in 2021-, by crossing the ecological footprint of human activities (land and sea surfaces necessary to produce the resources consumed and to absorb the waste of the population) and the “biocapacity” of the Earth (ability of ecosystems to regenerate and to absorb the waste produced by Man, in particular the sequestration of CO2).
This index, which has been steadily deteriorating for decades (with the exception of the year 2020 marked by the Covid-19 crisis), aims to illustrate the consumption of an expanding human population on a limited planet. And it is also broken down by country.
MAY 5, 2022. Today is Earth Overshoot Day in France. Emissions, wood, crops, fish: taking more from nature than it can renew in one year. With real ecological planning for the five-year period, the date would move back to May 30 in 2027 https://t.co/dFE76UVOUt pic.twitter.com/bFu1IYVDBX
— Pierre Cannet (@pierrecannet) May 5, 2022
For 2022, the day of the overshoot for France falls on May 5, about 5 months earlier than in 1961. If the whole world consumed today like the French, it would take 2.9 Earths to meet the needs of the inhabitants, specify Global Footprint and its partner WWF. “All the presidents of the Fifth Republic allowed the country’s ecological footprint to deteriorate. On average, according to data used each year by the Global Footprint Network, between 1981 and 2007, Overshoot Day advanced 10 days to the ‘outcome of each mandate’, denounced WWF France in a press release. But “good news: we are not condemned to it”, commented its honorary president Isabelle Autissier.
Possibility of “reversing the trend”
Reviewing three possible scenarios, the NGO believes that Emmanuel Macron’s new five-year term “can reverse the trend”. In such a scenario of “ecological planning”, France could thus gain 25 days (May 30) by 2027. This would involve planning and funding for the transition in all sectors, with “more ambitious” objectives and measures. than currently”, in particular to halve the use of pesticides, to achieve 25% of land cultivated organically, to carry out 700,000 complete renovations each year, to support alternatives to the car, to reduce the consumption of animal proteins by 20%, accelerate the development of renewable energies.
In the “commitments already made” scenario, which corresponds to the application of the laws and objectives already formalized over the past five years (National low-carbon strategy, Mobility, Food, Anti-waste, Climate laws, etc.), France would gain 3 days, to reach May 8 in 2027. In a scenario of “letting go” the Overshoot Day would on the contrary advance by two days, to May 3 in 2027.