With the so-called “Earth Overshoot Day” for the EU being reached today, more than 300 civil society organizations are urging European Union leaders to “tackle the nature, climate and pollution crises after the next European elections.” .
The appeal is made in an open letter released today, also signed by the Portuguese organizations League for the Protection of Nature (LPN), Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds (SPEA), Associação Natureza Portugal/World Wide Fund for Nature (ANP/WWF) and Zero – Sustainable Earth System Association.
The signatories call on heads of state and government, the presidents of the Commission, the Council and the EU Parliament, and MEPs, “to make a political commitment to work towards a climate-neutral economy, with pollution zero and positive for nature”.
They emphasize in the document that if the world’s populations followed EU consumption patterns, humanity would start consuming on credit from today, using resources that should only be used next year.
The open letter, the organizations say, follows “the unprecedented and worrying setbacks in ecological policies in recent months”, with “their instrumentalization for short-term electoral gains”.
According to the subscribing organizations, political decision-makers need to deepen and accelerate the European Green Deal, radically increase public investments in climate, environment and social justice, and “strengthen EU governance, democracy and the effective participation of civil society” .
Recalling that societies and economies depend on what nature provides, from food and water to wood and other materials, in addition to carbon absorption, the organizations emphasize that although the EU represents only 7% of the world’s population, three planets would be needed to satisfy the If everyone on Earth lived like Europeans.
The consequences of this unsustainable consumption include global deforestation, loss of biodiversity, collapse of fish stocks, water scarcity and pollution, soil erosion, air pollution and climate change.
Climate change is causing more frequent extreme weather events, with Europe on track for temperature increases twice those of other continents, they warn.
Remembering that there are European elections next month, the signatories of the letter say that the electoral act is the great opportunity to reverse the situation, making the planet’s triple crisis a political priority: climate change, loss of biodiversity and pollution.
The calculation to determine the day of the planet’s overload is made by the international organization “Global Footprint Network”.
On the 28th, Portugal reaches the end of its resources for this year, which means that if everyone on the planet lived like the Portuguese, resources for this year would be exhausted on that day.
Last year Portugal exhausted its resources for the year earlier, on May 7th.
According to the “Global Footprint Network”, this year the first country to run out of resources was Qatar, on February 11th, followed by Luxembourg, on the 20th, the United Arab Emirates, on March 4th, and the United States , on March 14th.
The last countries to exhaust their resources will be Ecuador and Indonesia, on November 24th, Iraq on the 15th and Jamaica on the 12th.
Tags: European Union exhausted environmental resources today
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