Overshoot day: a worrying new record for the planet

Luxembourg, July 24, 2025

This Thursday, July 24, 2025, humanity will have consumed all the natural resources that the planet can regenerate in one year. In just seven months, it has exhausted its annual ecological budget and is now living on credit on the Earth's natural capital. This means that average human consumption requires 80 % more resources than the planet can regenerate annually - which is equivalent to 1.8 planet. This worrying finding has been established by the Global Footprint Network and York University, based on the latest data on the world's ecological footprint and the capacity of ecosystems to regenerate.

Global Overshoot Day arrives earlier every yearThis trend is linked to an increase in average resource consumption and a reduction in nature's capacity to regenerate itself. This trend is linked to an increase in average resource consumption and a reduction in nature's capacity to regenerate itself.

What's more, due to climate change, which is warming and acidifying the oceans, they are less able to absorb carbon.

As a result, researchers have had to revise their calculation methods, reducing the Day of Global Exceedance by 7 days. Added to this is a slight increase in the average ecological footprint per person and a reduction in the regenerative capacity of ecosystems, further worsening this gloomy picture.

If this date is terribly worrying on an international scale, it is even more so for Luxembourg.. Indeed, the country crossed its own Overshoot Day as early as February 17, 2025, ranking second in the world for per capita consumption of resources, just behind Qatar. If the whole of humanity consumed as much as the average resident of Luxembourg, we would need almost 7 planets to meet our needs. The differences between country footprints are enormous. For example, a country likeUruguay manages to have an almost sustainable consumption, with a Day of Exceeding on December 17, and many countries in the global South don't even consume their share of available resources. There are also many inequalities within each country. It is therefore up to the countries and populations that consume the most resources to invest the most in achieving sustainable consumption.

Luxembourg has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 55 % by 2030. (compared with 2005) and achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Unfortunately, not only are these targets insufficient to limit global warming to +1.5°C, they are still a long way from being achieved.

A significant part of the strategy is based on theuse of technology still largely experimental, costly and energy-intensive, and whose large-scale effectiveness is not yet guaranteed, such as carbon capture and storage. In addition, Luxembourg's emissions do not take into account imports, which are nonetheless substantial, or international flights.

Since the early 1970s, the world is living in ecological overshoot. Every year, the deficit worsens, and the global ecological debt is now equivalent to 22 years of the planet's biological productivity. This situation contributes to deforestation, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion and climate disruption, resulting in extreme weather events and growing food insecurity.

But solutions do exist. Halving global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels would put back the Day of Exceedance by three months. The levers are in the fields ofpower supplyand transporturban development and the strengthening of ecosystems. Luxembourg has the financial and technical resources to take action within its borders and reduce its environmental impact internationally in a fair manner, but must make this an immediate political and economic priority.

 Instead of continuing with the traditional alarm bells on this day of overshoot, Votum Klima bets ona satirical video with Victor Klima, Minister for Enslavement, Growth and the Destruction of the Planet, once again congratulating Luxembourg, as he did in February, on its exemplary record.