German Overshoot Day: ′We cannot continue like this′

It is barely the start of May, however already Germany’s Overshoot Day. In different phrases, per particular person, the nation has used as a lot from nature in simply over 4 months as may be regenerated within the area of a 12 months. 

If folks the world over lived like these in Germany, we would wish three planets to cater to them. Though clearly, we solely have one.

“That should be an alarm signal to remind us of the gravity of the situation,” said Lara Louisa Siever, senior policy advisor for resource justice at the German development network INKOTA. “It’s a wakeup name to all of us residents, but in addition politicians and business, that we cannot continue like this.” 

Calculated by international reasearch group, Global Footprint Network, Overshoot Day factors in how much we consume, how efficiently products are made, population size and how much nature can reproduce.  

Germany’s early Overshoot Day is down to its intensive use of resources in areas such as agriculture and energy inefficiency in buildings, says Stefan Küper, press spokesperson for the environmental and sustainable development NGO Germanwatch.

“And this leads to Germany residing on credit score and taking much more from the planet than we’re supposed to,” he said.

Progress too slow

It is not the first time Germany has depleted its resources so quickly. In fact, the country’s official Overshoot Day has been close to the same date for years. 

“And that is the saddest half. We do not see sufficient motion in Germany. We are clearly not making any actual, measurable progress in the direction of utilizing much less sources or emitting fewer greenhouse gasses,” Küper said, adding it sends the wrong signal to other countries that might be looking at Germany to see how it is tackling the problem of emissions. 

“What they see is that Germany is not actually making any progress in reaching its climate objectives. So they will assume it is not a precedence for them both.” 

Against that backdrop, he says Germany has to “take big, measurable steps to present it did not solely set objectives, however is doing one thing to attain them.”

High-income countries live at the cost of low-income nations

Despite reaching its Overshoot Day so early in the year, Germany is by no means the first country to cross the dubious finishing line. Other high-income states including Qatar, Luxembourg, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and the United States got there even sooner. 

A fact that Siever says underscores how industrialized countries are living off the backs of low-income nations, such as Jamaica, Ecuador, Indonesia, Cuba and Iraq, which use fewer resources and will not reach their respective Overshoot Days until the end of the year.

“Germany is the fifth greatest shopper of uncooked supplies on the earth and is importing minerals and metals to 99% from nations in the Global South,” Siever said. “These nations do not devour the identical quantity of uncooked supplies, however are those bearing the prices; the human rights degradation and environmental damages.”

Earth Overshoot Day across the decades

Half a century ago, the Earth’s biocapacity was more than enough to meet annual human demand for resources. But ‘Earth Overshoot Day’, the date when humanity as a whole has used up the resources needed to live sustainably for a year, has been creeping up the calendar for a long time. 

For this year, the date hasn’t been announced yet, but it landed on August 22 in 2020. In 1970 and 1990, it fell on December 30 and October 10 respectively. By 2010, it had moved forward to August 6.

“That’s what worries me a lot, that we’ve got been overusing our sources for many years, and that globally talking, we’re seeing an rising stage of overuse,” Küper said. “It’s a growth that we’d like to cease instantly.”

What needs to change?

Among the main culprits for overshooting the planet’s natural budget are carbon emissions, which currently make up 60% of humanity’s ecological footprint. If we were to emit just half that, we would hit Earth Overshoot Day about three months later. 

Transitioning to renewable energy is one of the most powerful ways to cut emissions, but Siever says we also have to be aware of the raw material value chains involved.

“Everybody is asking for a renewable vitality transition. But we’d like minerals and metals for this, akin to cobalt, lithium and nickel. What we regularly overlook is that the processing of those minerals and metals contribute 11% to world CO2 emissions,” she said.

She is working with civil society to push for a raw materials transition that would see us use far fewer of them, and is encouraged by the fact that the German government included a plan to reduce its raw materials usage in its coalition treaty. 

Shaping a sustainable future

Many citizen initiatives, municipal policies and business strategies are already driving change that could ultimately impact when Germany hits it Overshoot Day in the future.  

In the western German city of Wuppertal, citizens initiatied a project to transform an old railroad into a bike path network, which is expected to be used by 90 million cyclists over the next 30 years. 

Not far away, in the city of Aachen, policymakers laid the strategic foundation for a climate-neutral city by 2030. The surface area of Aachen’s roofs eligible to support photovoltaic systems is large enough to meet the electricity demand of all inhabitants. The financing of 150 rooftop solar installations has already been secured, with another 1000 to be initiated this year. 

Küper believes such shifts are down to citizen initiatives like Fridays for Future putting pressure on politicians and demanding change. And he says dates such as Earth Overshoot Day play an important role in raising the alarm across the world.

“When we began elevating consciousness of today with different organizations, hardly anybody knew about it. Now I see an enormous development in public consciousness of the day and the issues it represents. And we’d like that. Without public stress, nothing goes to change as quick as we’d like it to,”  Küper said.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

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