Pandemic recovery moves forward 2021’s Earth Overshoot Day by a month as Humanity’s ecological footprint grows by 10%

Pandemic recovery moves forward 2021’s Earth Overshoot Day by a month as Humanity’s ecological footprint grows by 10%

This year’s Earth Overshoot Day has moved almost a month forward, in part due to the world’s economies recovering from 2020 and the growing demand for power fueled by hydrocarbons. Each year, Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth can renew during the entire year. Last year, that date was August 22 – reflecting a 9.3% reduction of humanity’s Ecological Footprint from January 1st to Earth Overshoot Day compared to 2019. This year’s date represents a ten percent increase and sets the Earth back to pre-pandemic levels of resource usage. Bahrain’s own Earth Overshoot Day was on March 9 of this year. In response to this, Schneider Electric and Global Footprint Network (GFN), a research organization that tracks how the world manages natural resources, today launched the “100 Days of Possibility” initiative, which aims to promote solutions that help address climate change and biodiversity loss. The 100 days referenced in the initiative’s name mark the time left until the start of the 26 annual UN Climate Conference (COP26), when government officials from around the globe will gather in Glasgow, Scotland, to try to agree on effective actions to combat climate change.