World Overshoot Day: World has already overshot nature’s budget for rest of the year

This year’s Earth Overshoot Day was observed (28^th July) a day before it was celebrated in year 2021 on July 29. It indicates that humanity’s demand for natural resources exceeds what the Earth can provide.

• The concept of Earth Overshoot Day was first conceived by Andrew Simms of the UK think tank New Economics Foundation, which partnered with Global Footprint Network in 2006 to launch the first global Earth Overshoot Day campaign.
• At that time, Earth Overshoot Day fell in October.
• World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the world’s largest conservation organization, has participated in Earth Overshoot Day since

How it is computed the earth’s overshoot capacity?

• It is computed by Global Footprint Network by;
• Dividing the planet’s bio-capacity(the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate that year), by humanity’s Ecological Footprint (humanity’s demand for that year), and multiplying by 365, the number of days in a year.

• The Ecological Footprint is a metric used that comprehensively compares human demand on nature against nature’s capacity to regenerate.

India’s stand

• India finds itself in a much better position compared to the other countries.
• India, with the second-largest population count in the world, still has a per capita consumption rate that is not at all in the danger area of getting unsustainable.
• According to the GFN, in a hypothetical situation where every citizen of the world lives like a citizen of the United States, sustainability would call for a total of 5 Earth.
• It is defined that people of the world living like Indians would actually call for only 0.7 of the planet Earth to reach sustainability.