Resources for the rest of the year have been used up
Published: Monday, May 27th 2024, 04:50
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On Monday (today), "Swiss Overshoot Day", Switzerland used up its resources for the rest of the year. According to the Global Foodprint Network, Switzerland will consume two and a half times as many environmental resources as are available globally by the end of 2024.
In 2023, "Swiss Overshoot Day" fell on May 13. It is true that the Swiss are tending to consume fewer and fewer resources at home. However, two thirds of Switzerland's environmental impact is caused by imports from abroad, according to the environmental organization Greenpeace, citing figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
In terms of its ecological footprint, Switzerland is living at the expense of future generations and other parts of the world. According to the FSO, the ecological footprint measures the consumption of natural resources and expresses in global hectares (gha) the area that would be required to produce these resources.
According to the FSO, most industrialized countries consumed more than two planet Earths, while the countries of the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and Africa consumed less than one Earth. Switzerland's per capita footprint was in line with the average for Western European countries. According to figures from 2022, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the USA and Canada consumed four times more resources than the world's available biocapacity.
"Earth Overshoot Day" is calculated in the same way as "Swiss Overshoot Day", which this year falls on August 2. According to calculations by the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES), Switzerland's domestic energy resources were already exhausted on April 17. According to the SES, Switzerland has been dependent on imports of energy sources such as oil, gas and uranium since this date.
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