I’ve been working out my annual carbon emissions. Using a table created by my friend Mark Standeven, my total direct CO2 emissions work out at 4.7 tonnes, which is a bit less than the average UK individual: 5.45 tonnes.

 

Here’s how it works out:

Car miles    588kg

Rail miles    354kg

Bus miles      80kg

Air miles    2248kg

Electricity    795kg

Gas              638kg

 

Total           4703kg

 

Working it out was fairly straightforward, although a couple of the figures were estimated. As I only use a rental car, or via the car club, I could get an exact record of my car mileage this year. Gas and electricity use came from bills (I get electricity from Good Energy - 100% renewable).

 

I flew twice this year - to France and to Ibiza. It’s going to be hard to cut that down in future - because I like going abroad, but flying accounts for almost 50% of my carbon emissions, so am aiming to take only one flight per year from now on. (And as Mark explained to me Carbon Offsetting is not really the answer, because we need to reduce before we offset, just carrying on as we are now, and offsetting is not going to solve environmental challenges).

 

Two things strike me:

1. I live a fairly energy saving life - I buy renewable electricity, don’t own a car, have low energy bulbs around the house, and switch things off pretty religiously. How am I, or anyone else, going to get emissions down to 1 tonne per year as recommended by various climate change commentators?

 

2. Quite a lot of my activity is unrecorded. Short bus travel. Car journeys as passenger. Short train journeys. How much of an impact would they have on the figures?