HUMANS will have gobbled up more of nature’s resources than the Earth can replenish in an entire year by late July – almost a month earlier than last year, campaigners have warned. 

The Global Footprint Network has calculated that this year’s Earth Overshoot Day will land on July 29.

The date marks when humanity’s resource consumption exceeds what nature can regenerate in a year. 

The calculation for 2021 suggests that levels of global demand have returned to pre-pandemic levels, since it falls almost as early as the 2019 Earth Overshoot Day on July 26. 

Last year, by contrast, the day was pushed back to August 22 as lockdowns worldwide cut consumption. 

This year’s date was announced today by Glasgow City Council leader Susan Aitken on behalf of the Global Footprint Network, ahead of the forthcoming Cop26 United Nations climate change conference in the Scottish city. 

“With almost half a year remaining, we will already have used up our quota of the Earth’s biological resources for 2021 by July 29,” she said. 

“If we need reminding that we’re in the grip of a climate and ecological emergency, Earth Overshoot Day is it.”

Ms Aitken said that the day should be “our call to arms” to take action. She called on leaders to make decisions at November’s conference that will “deliver our planet a safer and more sustainable future.”

The research team concluded that there was a 6.6 per cent increase in humanity’s global ecological footprint this year compared to 2020.

Our species is currently using 74 per cent more than what planet ecosystems can regenerate, campaigners added, with the Earth operating on “ecological deficit spending” for the rest of the year after Earth Overshoot Day.