This Saturday the symbolic Day of overcapacity, date that accounts for how humanity It exhausted all the resources that the Earth is capable of regenerating in a year, despite the fact that there are still more than four months until the end of 2020.
Global Footprint Network, the US NGO that has been in charge of these calculations since 2003, He noted that although the registration this year was extended by three more weeks, compared to 2019, there is no reason to be happy.
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The organization indicated that the slowdown in economic and industrial activity caused by the coronavirus crisis contributed to the natural resources lasting a little longer.
With the Overshoot Day, esta NGO seeks to illustrate how the expanding world population consumes faster and faster on a limited planet. Which is why, this year it would take 1.6 planets Earth to meet the needs of humanity in a sustainable way.
The coronavirus pandemic allowed humans to end up with fewer natural resources, according to a study. Photo: Getty Images.
The date is obtained by crossing the ecological impact of human activities (the land and sea surfaces necessary to produce the resources consumed and absorb the waste of the population) and the “biocapacity” of the Earth, that is, of the ecosystems to regenerate and absorb the waste produced by man, especially through the carbon dioxide (CO2) capture.
Overcapacity occurs when human pressure exceeds the regenerative capacities of ecosystems, a date that has been constantly moving forward for 50 years: December 29 in 1970, November 4 in 1980, October 11 in 1990, September 23 in 2000 and August 7 in 2010.
Last year it was July 29. Thus, August 22, 2020 marks an unusual improvement, but attributable only to the consequences of the global pandemic, which paralyzed entire sectors of human activity.
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“There is no reason for joy, since it is accompanied by suffering, it was not done on purpose, but due to a catastrophe”Mathis Wackernagel, president of the Global Footprint Network, stressed Thursday in an online event, in which he also warned that planetary resources are “like money: you can spend a little more than you have, but not in a way. permanent”.
Science determined years ago the consequences of living on credit with the planet:sfrom climate change to the disappearance of species and ecosystems.
Unprecedented drop in emissions
The latest reports from UN experts clearly identify what the way forward should be: reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, abandonment of fossil fuels, drastic change in the agri-food production model …
And is that to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement of 2015 and keep global warming well below +2 ºC compared to pre-industrial levels, emissions should be reduced 7.6 percent annually, according to the UN.
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A study published this month in the journal Nature Climate Change warned for its part that the unprecedented drop in emissions during the confinement of a large part of the world’s population – which could be 8 percent according to its authors and more than 10 percent, according to Global Footprint -, it will be of no use if there is no systemic change in energy and food.
Changing the energy generation model towards cleaner alternatives is one of the urgent needs to be able to reduce the consumption levels of the Earth’s natural resources. Photo: Pixabay.
To insist on this, the Global Footprint Network launched the #movethedate (delay the date) campaign, ensuring, for example, that reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion by 50 percent would allow more than 90 days to be saved.
Marco Lambertini, general director of WWF, associated with this NGO’s event since 2007, trusts that after the covid-19 and the reflections it aroused around the models of society, humanity will know “how to draw the lessons of what this pandemic has shown: the unsustainable relationship of waste and destruction that we maintain with nature.”
* With information from AFP.
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