Switzerland has today raised all resources for the year – that’s how it compares

This year’s Swiss Overshoot Day falls on May 13: if everyone around the world consumed like the people of Switzerland, everything that could renew our planet’s ecosystems in an entire year would be used up today. So it would need the regeneration capacity of nearly 3 earths to allow for Swiss consumption. This puts us well above the global average of 1.75 worlds.

Continued overshoot leads us to a future characterized by increasing climate change and increasing resource scarcity.

If Switzerland halved its greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030, as envisioned in the Paris Agreement, Swiss Overshoot Day would be postponed by 72 days to July 24.

Although development has been moving in the right direction since around 2007, there is still a long way to go before we live in such a way that natural resources last for a year.

In a global comparison, Switzerland was one of the first countries to have its own Overshoot Day. Only 26 countries used their resources before.

On February 10, all resources would be exhausted if the world lived like the people of Qatar. Luxembourg follows just four days later.

Different countries with their lifestyles do not consume the resources within a year. This also (still) includes India. With the increasing development in the giant empire, this could change. For example, China will reach its Overshoot Day on June 2, 2023.

No, March 25 was the day of the Swiss deficit. The Global Footprint Network calculates three different days that are important for Switzerland. According to founder and president Mathis Wackernagel, the Swiss Deficit Day (March 25) is the most important: “This is the most relevant day because it focuses on risk.”

But let’s look at the three different days:

According to Wackernagel, the question is not what to change, but whether we want to change something. The alternatives are ready. “But (too) few see the need to strengthen resource security,” Wackernagel writes when asked.

For example, food accounts for 20 percent of Switzerland’s footprint. “A robust food system for the world and for Switzerland requires less stressful production methods, a switch to less resource-intensive food, a reduction in the area of ​​animal feed that can be used to directly produce food for people, and the avoidance of food.” waste,” says Dr. Anita Frehner of the Research Institute for Organic Agriculture (FiBL).

So far, so familiar. But how will that change? Frehner: “It is less clear how we can ensure that these necessary changes in the food system are actually implemented – and so far we have seen little effort to seriously address these changes.”