Chaired by Prof. Kurt Hübner, Institute For European Studies, University of British Columbia (UBC) / PD Dr. Achim Brunnengräber, Environmental Policy Research Center (FFU), Freie Universität Berlin

The production and consumption of goods and services goes hand in hand with the production of carbon dioxide. In the last couple of years, the carbon content of production and consumption on a per unit base has – in some cases - decreased. The gains in efficiency due to process and product innovations are significant. But the Earth Overshoot day last year was on August 8, 2016. From this day on we began to use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate. As a matter of fact, the earth overshoot day happens slightly earlier every year and given the current trend it seems, that the global carbon budget, which leaves us under the 2 degrees celsius level agreed in Paris 2016, will be much earlier used up than previous prognoses calculated.