alexcochrane |
I have recently bought some train tickets from thetrainline and notice that they come with some information on CO2 emmisions for train, plane and car which are as follows: plane 0.13kg CO2 / km (short haul), train 0.06kg CO2 / km and average petrol car 0.2 kg CO2 / km. They are based on defra company reporting figures annex 6 (http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/envrp/pdf/ghg-cf-guidelines…). What strikes me as odd is that it seems to be better to fly than to drive alone. This is in contrast to the CRAG conversion figures where plane comes out significantly worse. Does anyone have any thoughts on the defra figures? Maybe I will fly to Spain next year after all.
All the best,
Alex.
fly or drive to Spain
john ackers
Oh this is a pandora’s box. Get the TGV if you can afford it.
Mark Lynas has compared travel modes and produced some useful tables. It has been reproduced by campaign against climate change here. He says: “Planes are roughly comparable to cars, in their fuel consumption per passenger mile, just in terms of carbon dioxide output alone. Long haul flights are a little more efficient, per passenger kilometer, than short haul flights, as a high proportion of the energy is required to climb to cruising altitude. However, this does not take account of the radiative forcing effect. With a 1.9 multiplier, the figures for the climate changing effect of flying look very different.”
DEFRA have assumed that there is one person in the car and ignore radiative forcing effect when flying. (Edited 21-Feb) We should not use a single conversion factor for air travel, the take off and the cruising part should be calculated separately. So the crag conversion number is not helpful for making informed choices of mode and also very high at 0.51Kg/Km. Our co2 from flying.