“We can postpone the French Overshoot Day by 25 days”

• Each year, Global Footprint Network calculates Earth Overshoot Day, the date on which humanity has consumed the natural resources that the Earth can renew in a year, whether to meet our needs or absorb our CO2 emissions.

• Last year it was July 29.

  But the think tank also declines the calculation for 200 territories, including France.

  For her, Overshoot Day comes much earlier in the year, as it falls on Thursday, May 6.

• The WWF, a partner of the think tank, estimates that it can be pushed back 25 days at the end of the five-year term which opens.

  Provided you make the right decisions.

The later, the better….

Calculated each year by the think tank Global Footprint Network, Overshoot Day measures the date on which humanity has consumed all the natural resources that the planet can renew in one year.

Last year, globally, it fell on July 29, the same day as in 2018 and 2019, after falling in 2020 under the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1971, this red line was crossed on December 22, a few days before the end of the year.

Then November 4 in 1980, October 4 in 1995, August 7 in 2010…

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The Global Footprint Network does not stop there.

It also declines Overshoot Day at the country level.

And France is dropping the average, since our red line is crossed this Thursday, May 6.

In other words, if the entire world population adopted the French way of life, humanity would live on credit on Earth for the rest of the year.

By taking the right measures during the five-year period which opens, it would be possible to push back this date by 25 days by 2027, assures WWF France, which details this possible future in a report published this Thursday.

Pierre Cannet, director of advocacy for the NGO, responds to

.

How has the date of French Overshoot Day evolved in recent years?

It advanced by an average of ten days at the end of each mandate, between 1981 and 2007. At the end of this period, it then occurred at the end of April.

Between 2007 and 2012 [Nicolas Sarkozy's five-year term], Overshoot Day fell by six days, largely due to the 2008 financial crisis which, by slowing the economy, also reduced our ecological footprint.

The economic crisis persisted under the five-year term of François Hollande, which made it possible to fall back five days again.

Finally, under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron, between the economic recovery at the start of his mandate and then the Covid-19 crisis at the end, the situation ultimately remained unchanged.

The main lesson is that the situation is simply blocked in France, with an Overshoot Day oscillating between the end of April and the first half of May.

This is three months earlier than at the global level, which now tends to fall at the end of July.

In other words, the mode of consumption of the French (agriculture, wood, energy, fish, etc.) is much more greedy in natural resources than that of the average of the world population.

And we are failing to close this gap.

What weighs particularly in the ecological footprint of the French?

Overshoot Day is all about determining the land area that would be needed to meet the consumption of the French population.

To replenish the fish stocks we consume, the forest products we buy... Six footprints are taken into account: agriculture, grasslands, forest products, fishing, land take and carbon footprint [see box].

It is the latter – the amount of land needed to absorb our greenhouse gas emissions – that largely wins out.

It accounts for 57% of our total footprint.

This is followed by agriculture (18%), forest products (12%), grasslands and fishing (5% both) and land take (3%).

You believe, at the WWF, that it would be possible to postpone the French Overshoot Day by 2027 by making the right decisions.

How ?

It is possible to roll it back 25 days.

This possible future corresponds to the “ecological planning” scenario that the WWF proposes.

It includes major objectives to be achieved by 2027, more important than those that France has set for 2030. In particular on our energy consumption.

We propose, for example, to play much more on sobriety and energy efficiency levers, by aiming for a 16% reduction in our energy consumption.

At the same time, this scenario is based on a massive and concerted development of renewable energies, a point on which we are lagging behind in France.

A large part of our carbon footprint is also linked to our transport.

We are once again proposing sobriety objectives by aiming to reduce road traffic by 18% and freight transport by 15%.

This would involve developing short circuits and allowing society to consume less goods.

The challenge is also to accelerate the development of electromobility with the objective that 18% of the car fleet will be electric by 2027.

Finally, in housing, another key sector, we are setting the course for 700,000 renovations per year, as Emmanuel Macron is aiming for.

But we are talking about global renovations, in one or two stages, and no longer about small do-it-yourself projects that make little progress on the path to energy efficiency, as is the case today.

So we must act mainly on our CO2 emissions?

It is there, in any case, where there are more gains to be made.

We have calculated that the measures mentioned above would, on their own, save 15 days out of the 25 targeted.

But it is also important to act on our other imprints.

In agriculture and food, halve food waste by 2030, and the use of pesticides by 2025, reduce animal protein consumption by 20% and increase our agricultural land to 25% grown organically would save us five days.

And three additional days by halving our consumption of overexploited fish and the quantity of bycatch thrown back into the sea. A more responsible consumption of wood, using it primarily for the construction of buildings and furniture, would push back two days,

Can we be content to postpone Earth Overshoot Day by 25 days by 2027?

Indeed, we would remain far too far from the Earth Overshoot Day, and even further from December 31, the date on which we must eventually reach.

This would mean that humanity does not consume more resources than nature is able to renew in a year.

In this context, pushing back to May 30 by 2027 is a crucial step.

It would be – finally – the beginning of a colossal transformation of our society, in its modes of consumption and its relationship to nature.

Do not be mistaken.

Reading the latest IPCC reports, many believed that we had three years to win the battle against climate change.

No, we have three years to initiate this colossal transformation that will occupy us in the coming decades no matter what.

Towards what trajectories would the “letting go” and “commitments already made” scenarios that you also studied in your report lead us?

The first corresponds to a scenario where nothing is done during the quinquennium.

The second starts from the principle that the five-year period which is beginning will be used to implement the commitments already made by France.

In other words, it models the trajectory to be followed to achieve the objectives set by the main documents framing the ecological transition.

The multiannual energy program (PPE), the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), the Egalim law, the Climate and Resilience law... These two scenarios lead us to relatively close points in 2027. would advance Overshoot Day by two days to May 3.

That of “commitments already made” would allow it to be postponed for three days, on May 8.

In both cases, France would stagnate again and again.

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How Overshoot Day is calculated

On one side of the equation, the Global Footprint Network looks at humanity's ecological footprint.

“That is to say the amount of natural resources [agricultural land, fish stocks, forests…] that are needed, on a global scale, to satisfy our food needs, our needs for wood, to ensure the development of cities… And, above all, absorb all the greenhouse gas emissions that humanity produces each year.

On the other side, the think tank is interested in the real biocapacity of the Earth, that is to say the quantity of renewable resources that it is capable of regenerating in one year.

All these indicators are reduced to a common unit, expressed in global hectares.

By dividing the Earth's biocapacity by humanity's ecological footprint, then multiplying the result by the number of days in a year, we arrive at this "Overshoot Day".

“The method is not perfect, which is normal for an indicator that aggregates so much data, indicated Arnaud Gauffier, director of programs at WWF, interviewed last July by

.

On the other hand, its strength is to apply the same methodology from one year to the next, which makes it a very interesting indicator for realizing trends.

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