2023-08-02 12:29:54
This Wednesday, the planet has consumed virtually all the resources that the Earth produces a year. The rest will be consumed on credit. For France, the day of the overshoot even took place as early as May 5. A situation to be deplored, even if our country is not at the bottom of the class.
We are now living on credit. This Wednesday August 2 marks the day when the world has consumed virtually all the resources that are generated over the course of a year. Or after only two-thirds of a full year.
This “overshoot day” is established by the Global Footprint Network, an international organization “helping the world live within the earth’s means and respond to climate change”. It measures the gap between the biocapacity of a region, what it produces in natural resources (timber, fish, etc.) and the demand we make of them. Scientists take into account 3 million statistical data from 200 countries.
The day of the overshoot is not only established on a global scale. Each country has its own. That of France was thus set for May 5, i.e. almost 3 months before the world average. However, France is not strictly speaking a “bad student”.
Insufficient “efforts” in France
If all of humanity lived the French lifestyle, it would take the equivalent of 2.9 blue planets to meet its needs. “France consumes 86% more than its own ecosystems can regenerate,” laments the Global Footprint Network.
“Even though France is making efforts, including on decarbonization, reducing food waste and eliminating domestic air travel, the country is still far from fit to function in a world plagued by persistent overshoot.” , warns Steven Tebbe, the organization’s CEO.
These “efforts” made by France in terms of sobriety are visible on York University screenings. In red, the extent of the “ecological deficit”. First reduced in the 1960s, it exploded between 1970 and 2010, only to contract slightly:
What factors are driving our rating down? Mainly our food and our use of fossil fuels. For this first point, the trend is obviously not the right one. According to Agreste, the organization in charge of monitoring statistical data at the Ministry of Agriculture, our meat consumption increased in 2022, as in 2021, after a period of decline.
In general, the day of the French overtaking changes only slightly, although the population increases. But this apparent good news is a trompe l’oeil, it emphasizes above all that the successive environmental policies do not make it possible to reverse the trend.
A distressing situation for Jean Rousselot, the head of the freshwater program at the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). He was exasperated about this at the microphone of France Inter:
“We’ve been stagnating with this overshoot day for a decade. We stayed where we are: it’s not getting worse like in the past since the 1970s, but we’re not improving. And this , despite all the announcements made during the climate COPs.”
On average for our EU neighbors
In absolute terms, France is not a good student. But its situation can easily be compared to that of its immediate neighbors within the European Union. For example, Luxembourg sees its overshoot date set for February 14, a statistical anomaly, the second largest European deficit, Estonia, entering the red only from March 14.
Among our closest neighbours, Belgium stands out by crossing its limit on March 26, in particular because of under-use of renewable energies. Otherwise, with an overrun on May 5, France is not far from Germany (May 4), Spain (May 12), Switzerland (May 13) and Italy (May 15).
Generally speaking, the countries of the North, the biggest energy exporters, are those which perform the least well. But the differences are not extremely significant within Europe, the lifestyles and consumption patterns being relatively similar despite the borders.
Qatar and the USA at the bottom of the ranking
Outside the European Union, the differences can be extremely flagrant. An image provided by the NGO makes it possible to simply visualize the gap between certain nations:
The very last country in the ranking is the very symbol of opulence: Qatar, which entered on credit on February 10. That is just over a month after the start of the year only. If every person on earth lived the same lifestyle as a Qatari, humanity would need the resources of 9 planets. In 2021, CO2 emissions per capita for Qatar were 34.4 tons of CO2 per capita. In France, in 2020, the carbon footprint per inhabitant fluctuated between 8 and 9 tonnes.
Among the other bad performers, we find on an equal footing the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, for an overrun on March 13, 2023, or about a third of the past year only. The American way of life, particularly focused on consumption, especially of meat, the use of fossil fuels and the use of polluting modes of transport, is not a myth.
Some countries don’t live on credit
But who are the good students? With an overshoot day set for December 20, Jamaica is a good student. And some countries like Ecuador and Indonesia are able to hold out with their resources until the last weeks of the year. But that does not make them headliners since some states just don’t exceed their abilities.
They are mainly located in Central Africa (Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo), but also in Asia where India and Pakistan never run into deficits. Generally speaking, developing countries in the southern hemisphere rank better than their northern neighbours.
However, to achieve the objective set by IPCC scientists, and limit the rise in global temperatures to +1.5°C, it will be necessary to at least globally reduce the day of the overshoot by 19 days per year for the decade to come. A collective effort.
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