Humanity has exhausted this year’s resources, and from today on it begins to use “credit cards”.

From this Thursday, humanity will begin using an “ecological credit card” by exhausting the planet’s available resources for this year, warns the international organization “Global Footprint Network”.

The so-called Overshoot Day, which falls a day earlier this year than last year, marks the moment when humanity’s demand for resources and environmental services exceeds planet Earth’s ability to replenish those same resources.

Therefore, as the environmental association Zero explains in a statement, from this Thursday it is necessary to use natural resources that should only be used from January 1, 2025, which means that man uses 1.7 planets, that is, 70% more than nature offers annually.

Analyzing data from the Global Footprint Network, Zero notes that there is a stagnation trend on Planetary Overshoot Day, which may be linked to decarbonization efforts, but warns that to cut global emissions by 43% by 2030, we would need to retreat to “Overshoot Day” 19 days a year.

“The data tells us that Humanity must accelerate its pace of development and make the necessary changes to reduce the impact that its activities and needs have on the planet’s carrying capacity,” says Zero, giving examples of how to further reduce that impact.

Providing 75% of the world’s electricity from renewable sources would push back Reset Day by 25 days. And halving food waste would mean another 13 days of setbacks. But halving carbon emissions would push back 93 days, to early November.

The environmental association, in addition to highlighting the issue of accelerating the transition, highlights the UN Future Summit in September, which is dedicated to strategies that integrate future consequences into current decisions.

In its statement, Zero said it hoped to see change at the Future Summit, an event that brings together world leaders and aims to adopt a Pact for the Future.

The Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability organization that pioneered the study of ecological footprints, says overuse of resources is threatening the oceans, leading to deforestation, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, which is responsible for global warming, which causes extreme weather events and increased food insecurity.

Lewis Akenji, director of the Global Footprint Network, assured, quoted in a statement related to the “Day of Realignment,” that the future will go through a planned transition or catastrophe caused by an unbalanced planet.

Drawing an analogy to the Olympic Games taking place in Paris, the organization says that just as athletes achieve progress through focus, innovation and effort, humanity must do the same to end Planetary Overload Day.

According to the Global Footprint Network, Portugal exhausted its own resources much earlier, on May 28 this year.

According to the numbers, if every person on the planet lived like the average Portuguese, humanity would need about 2.9 planets to maintain its resource use. But if everyone lived like Americans, it would take five planets.

The Ecological Footprint estimates human needs for renewable resources and essential services and compares them with the Earth’s capacity to provide such resources and services (biocapacity).

This year, the first country to run out of resources was Qatar on February 11, followed by Luxembourg on February 20. The last countries to run out of resources will be Ecuador and Indonesia on November 24.