France hits its 'overshoot' day, using up all its natural resources for the year

During the first four months of 2022, France used all of its natural resources for the year, calculations by the Global Footprint Network show. Thursday, 5 May 2022, is France's so-called “overshoot day”.

A wind turbine standing in the middle of rapeseed fields in northern France. © Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

Each year, the Global Footprint Network research organisation calculates “Earth overshoot day” by comparing the human impact on the environment with the “biocapacity” of the earth to regenerate and absorb waste produced by humans – in particular CO2 emissions.

The goal is to highlight the impact of human consumption of Earth’s limited resources.

For individual countries, their overshoot day shows what the world would look like if everyone lived like them.

According to the group, if everyone in the world lived like the French do today, Earth overshoot day would be 5 May. Earth overshoot day in 2021 was 29 July.

France continues to overshoot

France’s 2022 overshoot day falls six days earlier than it did in 2018

“In the last four years, France’s [environmental] footprint slightly increased, while the biocapacity per person worldwide also decreased,” wrote the Global Footprint Network on Thursday.

According to the WWF, a partner on the project, “the French economy is poorly prepared for the predictable future of climate change and resource constraints, despite many available options”.

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But in a statement about French policies, the organisation says President Emmanuel Macron could improve things in his next five-year term.

"All the presidents of the Fifth Republic have let the ecological footprint of the country degrade,” writes the group, showing that each presidential term has moved France’s overshoot day back by ten days.

France can do better

Macron could reverse this trend, pushing forward the date by 25 days by the end of his term, to 30 May 2027, if he implements what the WWF calls “ecological plannifciation”.

This would involve halving the amount of pesticides used in France by 2027 and increasing France’s organic agriculture production to 25 percent, as well as retrofitting and renovating 700,000 buildings each year, getting people to use alternatives to car transportation for at least 15 percent of their travel, and speeding up the development of renewable energy.

France would also need to eat more plants and reduce its meat consumption by 20 percent.

If Macron sticks to what he’s already promised, he will only push forward France’s overshoot day by 3 days, to 8 May 2027.