Planetary Health Matters: Living beyond the planet’s credit limit

Malaysia needs to stop investing in new fossil fuel projects. New oil and gas fields take more than 15 years to move from discovery to production, meaning projects approved today will keep pumping emissions for decades. — GARY BEMBRIDGE/Wikimedia Commons

IMAGINE constantly living on a maxed-out credit card. The bills continue to arrive; the interest consistently compounds, and yet you keep spending as if the limit does not exist.

This is what many nations are doing to the air that we depend on to sustain all forms of life. The scientific term for this is ecological overshoot, where our activities emit more carbon than the planet can absorb. In other words, we are spending ecological capital faster than the planet can replace it.