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As Luxembourg becomes the first European country to reach its Overshoot Day^[1] this Monday, Greenpeace Luxembourg and Médecins Sans Frontières Luxembourg (MSF) are joining forces to remind us that this environmental crisis threatens biodiversity and ecosystem balance and poses a direct danger to health, both in vulnerable countries and within our societies.

Overshoot Day marks when a country has consumed all the natural resources the planet can regenerate in a year. Luxembourg is the first European nation to exceed its limits and the second globally, just behind Qatar. Transport, high meat consumption, and energy use make Luxembourg's ecological footprint one of the largest in the world.

"If the entire global population consumed as we do in Luxembourg, we would need more than seven planets to meet our needs," laments Xavier Turquin, Director of Greenpeace Luxembourg. "While 2024 was the first year we officially surpassed 1.5°C of global warming, we are seeing climate action losing ground everywhere."

However, as Thomas Kauffmann, Director of MSF Luxembourg, points out, the climate crisis is also a health crisis: "Crops devastated by droughts or torrential rains lead to famine, and rising global temperatures result in new diseases or a wider spread of existing ones, such as respiratory illnesses and malaria. There is also a proven link between pollution and cancer." These consequences could also affect Luxembourg, which is already experiencing an increase in extreme weather events and a decline in biodiversity.

Through this new collaboration—building on past joint efforts, notably in Greece in 2015^[2]—Greenpeace and MSF aim to highlight the urgency of coming together: "The challenge is so great that we can no longer act in isolation," said the two directors.

To illustrate this shared vision, each organisation will share visuals on its social media featuring diptychs—images from both Greenpeace and MSF—simultaneously depicting the causes and consequences of the climate crisis on human health. "Because we cannot be healthy on a sick planet, and fighting climate change also means saving those already dying from it."

In a spirit of mutual support, each organisation will also encourage backing for the other via their shared webpage^[3].

Beyond mobilising as many people as possible around the vital issues of environment and health, the two organisations call on national and international authorities to adopt more ambitious measures that match the scale of the crisis, to honour their current and future commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure equitable access to healthcare, particularly for populations most exposed to climate risks.

For more information, visit the Greenpeace Luxembourg and MSF Luxembourg websites. 

Notes:
^[1] Overshoot Day is calculated annually by the Global Footprint Network, which measures humanity’s ecological footprint.
^[2] https://www.msf.fr/actualites/msf-et-greenpeace-lancent-des-operations-de-sauvetage-conjointes-en-mer-egee
^[3] https://greenpeace.msf.lu