Earth Overshoot Day
Context:
- Earth Overshoot Day has shifted back to July 29, says the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
- This means humanity has used all biological resources that the Earth regenerates during the entire year by July 29, the same date as in 2019.
- The deforestation of the Amazon has played a key role in the World Overshoot Day coming back to July 29 this year.
- Humanity currently uses 74 per cent more than what the planet’s ecosystems can regenerate — or 1.7 Earths.
- From Earth Overshoot Day until the end of the year, humanity operates on ecological deficit spending.
- This spending was currently some of the largest since the world entered into ecological overshoot in the early 1970s, according to the National Footprint & Biocapacity Accounts based on UN datasets.
So what caused the date to come back to what it was in 2019?
- WWF noted that the prime driver was the 6 per cent increase in the global carbon footprint in 2020.
- There was also the 5 per cent decrease in ‘global forest biocapacity’ due to a rise in deforestation of the Amazon’s rainforests.
- Some 1.1 million hectares of rainforest were lost in Brazil alone, and there would be a 43 per cent year-over-year increase in deforestation in 2021.
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