Today, 3 May, marks EU Overshoot Day – meaning the EU has already used up nature’s budget for the entire year. We would need 3 planets to satisfy our demand if everyone on Earth lived this way. Our societies and economies all depend on what nature provides – food, water, timber, carbon absorption, and land to build infrastructure. Preserving and sustaining nature’s priceless assets is essential to European economic #competitiveness, #security, #health and #stability.
But until government policies recognise and reflect the real value of nature, the costs and consequences of our ecological overshoot will only get bigger - from global deforestation, biodiversity loss, fish stock depletion, water scarcity and pollution, soil erosion, air pollution, and more frequent extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and wildfires.
How much longer do we wait until we all take action to reverse the negative decline and start protecting the #resilience of our economies, food systems and communities from #climatechange and #naturecollapse?
The Nature Conservancy is proud to join 317 civil society organisations from across Europe in signing an open letter calling on EU leaders to prioritise focus and financing for climate change, nature and sustainable development, to ensure public policies support a fair and inclusive transition 👉🏽 https://bit.ly/3WjiMpY
Concretely, this means:
🌲 Deepening and accelerating the #EUGreenDeal, by fully implementing recently agreed goals and addressing ambition gaps on nature, climate as well as pollution
🌍 Increasing public climate, environment and social investments
⚖️ Leveraging public investments to unlock large-scale private financing for nature and climate that also drive ‘win-wins’ for our economies and communities
💪 Strengthening EU governance, democracy and the effective participation of civil society.
With policies that prioritise people and the planet – and strive towards a climate-neutral, nature-positive economy - we have the opportunity to turn the tide and stop Overshoot Day from happening earlier and earlier every year.
#OvershootDay
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