July 29 marks Earth Overshoot Day, the point in the calendar when humans will have used up a year’s worth of the planet’s natural resources.
It means that, for the remainder of 2021, humanity will be running up an environmental debt, consuming more than the Earth can naturally replenish in a 12-month period.
In effect, we're consuming the resources of a planet 1.7 times the size of our own.
Yet we will not only be drawing down on the natural capital that would otherwise be available for future generations, but also generating more carbon dioxide emissions.
What is especially worrying is that Overshoot Day, calculated by non-profit organisation Global Footprint Network (GFN), has arrived earlier nearly every year since the start of 1970s.
The only exception was in 2020, when Covid-induced lockdowns drastically reduced humanity’s ecological footprint.
According to GFN estimates, the global carbon footprint fell nearly 15 per cent in 2020 from a year earlier. Since then, however, the long-term trend has resumed and is back to where it was before the pandemic.
But there are hopes that the pandemic has delivered a wake-up call for the world. The past year has highlighted a number of environmental issues which may have aggravated the public health crisis and might yet sow seeds for future pathogenic outbreaks.
Take air pollution, which is estimated to kill 7 million people prematurely every year.
Researchers have found that poor air quality - a bi-product of excess carbon emissions - may have exacerbated the impact of the pandemic.
Several studies have linked high levels of particulate matter in the air to elevated coronavirus mortality rates. What is equally clear from the pandemic experience, however, is how quickly air pollution can be reduced.
As road and air traffic ground to a halt and factories were shuttered, air quality improved dramatically.
In China, concentrations of particulate matter, also known as PM2.5, fell by as much as a third in early March from a year earlier.
Although there is a strong possibility that pollution will rise rapidly to pre-crisis levels as lockdowns ease – as is already the case in China - local and national governments are not letting this crisis go to waste.
From Milan and London to New York and Seattle, cities are introducing ambitious schemes to incentivise the adoption of cleaner sources of transport and pedestrianise neighbourhoods.
But air pollution is just one of many pressing environmental problems the pandemic has laid bare.
Biodiversity is another. A number of scientific studies -- including one by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services -- show that biodiversity loss, caused by, among things, deforestation, brings humans closer to wildlife which increases the chances of certain viruses spilling over into people.
All of which means safeguarding biodiversity will likely take centre stage in the public debate on how to prevent future pandemics and improve the health of the world population.
Towards a more sustainable post-Covid world
Just over a year after the Covid outbreak triggered strict restrictions on economic activity that helped reduce carbon emissions, the removal of lockdowns threatens to put the environment under extreme stress once more.
Clearly, putting the brakes on economic activity is not a viable solution. What is needed is a much more ambitious transformation of our economic structures.
Net zero pledges from not just governments but powerful corporations is a good starting point. So too is the reshaping of the global tax system to discourage carbon emissions and incentivise the adoption of renewable energy -- a global carbon tax would be a major step in the right direction.
This is a challenge that requires an all-hands-on deck approach involving everyone -- governments, businesses and individuals.
