Calculations: Earth's ecological carrying capacity will be reached on August 1st
Centuries ago, the Earth's overloading has been increasing nearly every year, but it has been at high levels for almost a decade, explained Christoph Bals, political director of Germanwatch. However, a turning point can be recognized. With renewable energies, energy storage, electric mobility, and heat pumps, the overloading can decrease soon, he emphasized. "But these and other encouraging trends must be significantly accelerated to prevent irreversible climate tipping points and massive further biodiversity losses", he added.
Air travel is particularly harmful to the climate - although, according to experts, more than 80 percent of the world population never board an aircraft. Only a very small part of the world population is responsible for one of the major drivers of the climate crisis through their flying behavior, explained Germanwatch's representative for climate neutral mobility, Jacob Rohm. Therefore, solutions for nearly climate-neutral flying must be worked on "with high pressure".
The global Earth Overshoot Day has been shifting nearly continuously forward by almost 20 years. In 2000, the date still fell on September 23, more than a month later than today. The Corona pandemic caused an exception: In 2020, reduced economic activities and lockdown measures significantly lowered CO2 emissions and delayed the symbolic date to August 22.
Experts of the Global Footprint Network provide two computational quantities for calculation: on the one hand, the Earth's capacity to build up resources and absorb waste and harmful emissions, and on the other hand, the areas that humanity consumes through its lifestyle. To sustainably cover the current resource consumption, the world population would theoretically need 1.7 Earths.
- Christoph Bals from Germanwatch mentioned that the Earth's overloading has been high for nearly a decade.
- According to Germanwatch, the global Earth Overshoot Day, which symbolizes the Earth's overloading, shifted forward by approximately 20 years since 2000.
- In the discussions about climate crisis, the role of air travel as a major driver is emphasized by Germanwatch's representative for climate neutral mobility.
- The Calculations provided by the Global Footprint Network show that humanity currently consumes resources at a rate that would require 1.7 Earths to sustain.
- Christoph Bals also highlighted that the decreasing overloading can be achieved through the use of renewable energies, energy storage, electric mobility, and heat pumps.
