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Flights

Following on from measuring my household carbon emissions, I created a list of every flight I've ever taken (that I can remember):

Domestic flights: 26,593 km International flights: 135,255 km

Then I used the multipliers from carbNZero to calculate the CO2-e emissions associated with those flights.

Total emissions: 40.6 tonnes CO2-e

The next step is decide what to do about that number.

Offset?

• carboNZero charge $33.67 per tonne to offset - which would cost me $1368
• the New Zealand ETS price cap is $25 per tonne - which would cost me $1016
• small foresters are selling NZ [carbon] Units for about $20 per tonne at the moment - which would cost me $812
• invest in a forest carbon sink to cover flights for the whole family, plus all driving and other greenhouse gas emissions. A share of a forest carbon sink might cost $6000 per hectare. How many hectares I need would depend on how many years I wanted to take to sequester that debt. I'm mulling that over.

Paul Kennett
14 Aug 2010

The next major step in calculating my total lifetime carbon emissions would be to work out my road transport emissions. At the moment that seems like a lot more work (and guesswork).

I could: A. guess it's about two/three/four(?) times my flight emissions or B.

• start by making notes on every holiday I can remember
• estimate long car trips
• estimate bus trips
• estimate train trips