Stockholm (NordSIP) – This week marked “country overshoot day” for Denmark (March 28th) and Finland (March 31st), according to an estimate published by the Global Footprint Network (GFN) at the start of 2023.
Every year, the GFN publishes its earth overshoot day, an estimate of the day when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services has already exceeded what planet Earth was expected to be able to regenerate during 2022. The date of Earth Overshoot Day is calculated each year by the GFN, using National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts data, based on approximately 15,000 data points per country per year, for over 200 countries, territories, and regions from 1961 to the present.
A country’s overshoot day is the date on which Earth Overshoot Day would fall if all of humanity consumed like the people in that country.
The dates for Denmark’s and Finland’s country overshoot days come on the same date as in 2022, suggesting that while conditions have not worse they have also not improved.
Denmark’s and Finland’s Earth Overshoot Day makes them the 8th and 9th earliest country to mark this sad occasion. According to the GFN, it would take four earths to sustain humanity if everyone on the planet lived like the two Nordic countries.
Next week will mark country overshoot day for Sweden, which will be followed the week after by Norway’s.
