Why
Calculate your flight carbon footprint. The one that we would recommend is:
Air travel accounts for 22% of the UK's transport GHG emissions, and 7% of the UK's overall GHG emissions (Climate Assembly)
Planes are the most polluting form of transport. The emissions per passenger kilometre are 171g for cars, 105g for buses, 41g for national trains, 6g for Eurostar and 255g for planes on average.
Aircraft contrails trap infrared rays, causing a global warming effect 3 times more pernicious than CO2.
Flying first class is responsible for over 9 times the emissions of economy class.
How
Limit holiday flights to one per year.
Take the train not the plane.
Travel economy - the footprint of economy class is 0.76, business class 2.30 and first class 6.89 (World Bank, 2013).
Eliminate business travel. The COVID-19 pandemic has proved that it is almost always unnecessary. In particular, abandon personal attendance at conferences especially those devoted to climate change.
Did you know?
The most carbon costly flights are short-haul or internal flights. This is due to the take-off and landing cycle burning more fuel than level flying (Our World in Data, 2020)
Globally 1% of the world’s population emits 50% of aviation CO2.
A journey between London and Glasgow by plane would emit over 700% more CO2 per passenger than by coach, and 70% more CO2 per passenger than a journey by the average petrol car (UK Department for Transport, 2021).
In 2019, global air travel created 915 million tonnes of CO2, and 2% of global human-induced CO2 emissions (ATAG, 2021)
With contrails included, global air travel would account for approximately 5% of global human-induced CO2 emissions (EESI, 2019)
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In order to keep warming below 1.5C we need to halve emissions by
2030. Share this action and help play a part in reversing climate change.
