Overshoot Day: Luxembourg once again on the sad podium

This Tuesday, 17 February 2026, Luxembourg will once again be the second country in the world after Qatar to reach Overshoot Day.

This is the day on which our country has used up all of its available natural resources for the year and will therefore be living on credit for the rest of the year. Luxembourg is thus once again on the sad “winner’s podium” worldwide…

One might have expected Luxembourg to take action to relinquish this extremely inglorious “winning position” and do everything in its power to push back Overshoot Day 2026. Move the date! should be the motto here.

Unfortunately, this has not happened again, despite government promises and initiatives to this effect.

The success of this government must also be measured by whether it succeeds in making Luxembourg more resilient and sustainable from a sustainability perspective.

Luxembourg must therefore intensify its efforts to embark on the path of socio-ecological transition. Important cornerstones for achieving this have long been known: They range from the introduction of certain environmental taxes as part of a sustainable tax reform (soya tax, pesticide tax, penalty system for particularly emission-intensive cars, etc.), much greater support for financially weak households in the energy transition, the prioritisation of organic and regional products in all public canteens and the promotion of organic farming, to projects in the field of the circular economy. to initiatives to make the social system less dependent on growth.

Given that Luxembourg’s inglorious role as the winner of Overshoot Day has been lamented and discussed for years without anything changing, Mouvement Ecologique and Oekozenter Pafendall want to use a key dossier to show what needs to be done: a 9-point programme to promote the renovation of existing buildings.

Here, resource and climate protection go hand in hand with social aspects: the proposed programme is intended to make a concrete contribution to Luxembourg’s progress in this area… and hopefully push Overshoot Day back a little.

17.02.26