On Monday 17 February 2025, Luxembourg will become the first European country to reach its Overshoot Day, the date on which Earth Overshoot Day would fall if all of humanity consumed at the same rate as the people in the Grand Duchy.

Greenpeace Luxembourg and Médecins Sans Frontières Luxembourg (MSF) are joining forces to remind people that this environmental crisis is not only a threat to biodiversity and the balance of ecosystems but also represents a direct danger to health, both in the most vulnerable countries and in our societies.

Luxembourg will be the first European country to exceed its limits and the second in the world, just behind Qatar. Transport, excessive meat consumption and energy consumption contribute to making Luxembourg's ecological footprint one of the highest on the planet.

Director of Greenpeace Luxembourg, Xavier Turquin, lamented: "If all of humanity consumed as we do in Luxembourg, we would need more than seven planets to meet our needs. While 2024 was the first year in which we officially exceeded 1.5C of global warming, we can see everywhere that measures to combat climate change are losing ground."

However, as Director of MSF Luxembourg, Thomas Kauffmann, pointed out, the climate crisis is also a health crisis: "Harvests decimated by droughts or torrential rains cause famines, and global warming leads to new diseases or a wider spread of existing ones, such as respiratory diseases and malaria; similarly, there is a proven link between pollution and cancer."

These consequences could impact Luxembourg, which is already experiencing an increase in extreme weather events and a decline in biodiversity.

Through this new collaboration, the two NGOs having already joined forces in the past in Greece in 2015, Greenpeace and MSF intend to illustrate the urgency of coming together, with both directors stating: "The stakes are such that we can no longer act in isolation", adding: "We cannot be healthy on a sick planet, and because fighting the climate crisis also means saving those who are already dying from it."

To illustrate their shared vision, each association will share on its social networks visuals composed of images from Greenpeace and MSF, in a diptych, to show both the causes and the consequences of the climate crisis on human health. In the spirit of reciprocity, each of the associations will also call for support for the other, which is a first for these associations in Luxembourg.

Beyond mobilising the greatest number of people around the issues of the environment and health, the two organisations are calling on national and international authorities to take more ambitious measures which are commensurate with the challenges, to respect their current and future commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to guarantee equitable access to health care, particularly for populations which are the most exposed to climate risks.

SM