August 2 is this year's Earth Overshoot Day. It is the day when humanity has used up all the natural resources that the Earth can provide within a year. China had its turn in June, Germany in May. Luxembourg, on the other hand, already on February 14. Are we really that wasteful? How much does the individual contribute? We asked our interviewees.
Every year, the Global Footprint Network (GFN) makes projections for all countries and the world as to when they will have used up the CO₂ emissions available to them in relation to their size. In principle, this involves recording how much CO₂ a country and its population emits and how much the country can store in order to meet the two-degree target. If a country exceeds its own limit, it is living at the expense of the environment and future generations. Not all countries will reach this threshold by 2023. And India, of all countries, which this year overtook China as the most populous country in the world, does not need to use up its quota. After Qatar, Luxembourg is the worst off in the world. According to GFN, if all the people in the world lived like the Luxembourgers, humanity would need almost eight Earths. Justifying thoughts quickly arise: Fuel tourism, cross-border commuters also consume, etc. These questions, among others, led the Council for Sustainable Development (CSDD) to commission the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) with a study to better understand the GFN figures. The Lëtzebuerger Journal spoke to Romain Poulles from the CSDD and Frédéric Meys from Greenpeace about this.
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