CO2: Overshoot Day and the “snowball” effects!

Every year, the date on which the planet has consumed the share of resources it renews over twelve months advances by a few days. Given the way capitalist globalization operates, based on the race for profit, global warming is likely to accelerate significantly in the coming decades. The melting of the permafrost will release significant greenhouse gases.

Unsurprisingly, we learned that the planet's globally renewable resources over a year had been consumed on July 24th, according to calculations made annually by the NGO Global Footprint Network. This date occurred on December 29th in 1971, but as early as August 25th in 2005, which gives an idea of its worrying evolution. Based in The Hague, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) took the opportunity to make it known that states that violate their climate obligations commit an "internationally wrongful" act and could be subject to legal claims for "reparations" by the countries most affected by the consequences of global warming.

According to French international law attorney Arnaud Gossement, "this opinion is extremely important because it sets out the interpretation that states must adopt in the fight against climate change. The Court is giving the most ambitious interpretation that could be given," he adds. This "ambitious" interpretation was not included in the agreement on customs tariffs reached on July 26 between Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. But this agreement will encourage an increase in CO2 emissions, through production transfers, duplication of investment, and an increase in the extraction of non-renewable raw materials at a time when there is an urgent need to reduce their consumption.

Limiting the conclusions to be drawn from the Earth Overshoot Day – the date of which is advancing year after year – to international law will never be enough to slow the current warming to +2°C, and even less to +1.5°C, if possible; the figure adopted at the Cop 21 held in Paris in December 2015. With a warming of +2°C, studies now indicate that 800 million to 3 billion people could experience chronic water shortages in the coming decades due to droughts and 1.4 million children would suffer from severe growth retardation in Africa.

Both before and after the announcement of Earth Overshoot Day, the increase in fires in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, and other continents shows that we have entered a process of "snowball effects." This expression is often used to describe the spiraling public debt of a country in relation to the evolution of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But it has hardly been used in recent days regarding the acceleration of global warming. Beyond the damage caused and the carbon footprint attributable to the essential implementation of means to fight each fire, each hectare of forest burned also reduces CO2 capture for many years. At the same time, repairing and rebuilding buildings that have burned also increases the carbon footprint year after year at the global level. However, according to Jean-Baptiste Filippi, a research fellow at the CNRS (1), "every new fire now breaks records; the exception becomes the norm. Heatwaves and strong winds are characteristics of climate change." But, as soon as the two follow one another, you have a large fire: it is this recurrence that makes us speak of a megafire.

In addition to fires, global warming is also increasing the frequency of storms, hailstorms, and floods. This was again the case in China during the last week of July. Beyond crop losses in agriculture, the overall carbon footprint of climate disasters continues to climb. Even in the absence of fires, repeated droughts reduce CO2 uptake by trees, which are increasingly attacked by pests, including the bark beetle in our country.

The free trade agreement concluded since 2019 between the European Commission and the Mercosur countries—and which Ursula Von der Leyne is trying to have the member states of the European Union sign this year—is said to be contributing to ongoing global warming due to an acceleration of deforestation in the Amazon, the sole purpose of which is to sell more soy, corn, and meat to Europe. This deforestation has been accelerating for years because the Mercosur countries already export many of Europe's agricultural products to other regions of the world, starting with China.

Frozen land, known as permafrost, covers between 15 and 23 million square kilometers worldwide. The melting of this permafrost is accelerating and will release a significant amount of CO2 in the coming decades. It is estimated that the currently frozen land stores 1.5 trillion tons of CO2, more than double the amount currently present in the atmosphere. When it thaws, permafrost can also release microbes that are harmful to health.

In European Union member countries, one of the most effective solutions for capturing carbon would be to develop what is called "agroforestry." This involves planting rows of trees in meadows and on cultivated land, including cereal plains, at a rate of around fifty trunks per hectare. On farms where this practice is developing, it has been observed that, due to their low density per hectare and their deep roots, the trees do not lack water to grow. Too few farmers have taken up this practice, which is hardly helped by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget, which the European Commission wants to reduce further in the coming years. The too few farmers who practice agroforestry draw positive conclusions from it. This is the case of Jack Delozzo, a producer of meat, fruit, and vegetables for direct sale in Noihan in the Gers region. To the point of highlighting this slogan: “the tree is an input, not an intruder!”