Green Lives
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Transport - carbon reduction

The average Briton produces around 4 tonnes of CO2 each year as a result of personal transport but this figure hides a huge range of different experiences. The major differentiator is whether or not one flies. The second is car ownership. To reduce one's transport carbon footprint below the national average it is more or less necessary to work on major reductions in both plane and car use.

This may sound extreme, and for some people it would be. If your relatives or close friends live on another continent it is hard to decide to give up flying. If you are living in a rural area without good public transport it's almost impossible to manage without a car. But for plenty of others in the UK, particularly those living in cities, it turns out to be rather painless to give up both flying and car ownership.


We live in a London suburb with good public transport and we don't have relatives to visit in distant lands so we decided to plot our travel and see if we could reduce our transport carbon footprint. 


Results so far:













Year
 Car
 Flights
Miles travelled

CO2 in tonnes for 2 person household

CO2 in tonnes per person
 2004-5  owners  1 to Madrid
 19,351
 4.43
2.21
 2007-8  car club
none  19,790
 2.24
2.12
 2008-9
 car club
none
 11,144
 1.14
0.57

Worth trying:


No fly holidays - more


Car clubs - more