Location location location: a carbon footprint calculator for transparent travel to the UN Climate Conference 2022

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Abstract

Addressing the large carbon footprint of conferences such as the United Nations Climate Change Convention Conference of the Parties (COP) will be important for maintaining public confidence in climate policy. Transparency is also a vital aspect of creating equitable outcomes in climate policies, as those most likely to be affected or who can create change on the ground are often unable to attend in person because of the high financial costs as well as having a large carbon footprint. The selection of host locations for the regular meetings of the UN Climate Change Convention is based on a rotation amongst the five UN regions, which for 2022 was Africa. Here, we present a carbon footprint calculator for travel to COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, weighing the benefits of certain routes and modes of transport. The calculator demonstrates the well-known carbon efficiency of coach and rail over flights but shows that these benefits were partly diminished in the case of COP 27 due to insufficient transport links from Europe to the conference location. However, we also highlight some of the benefits of hosting a COP in the Global South, particularly in the context of climate justice. Users of the calculator are invited to consider all their options for travel and acknowledge the issue of climate justice through careful selection of carbon offsets.

Most cited references 44

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The contribution of global aviation to anthropogenic climate forcing for 2000 to 2018

D.S. Lee, D.W. Fahey, A. Skowron … (2020)

Global aviation operations contribute to anthropogenic climate change via a complex set of processes that lead to a net surface warming. Of importance are aviation emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), water vapor, soot and sulfate aerosols, and increased cloudiness due to contrail formation. Aviation grew strongly over the past decades (1960–2018) in terms of activity, with revenue passenger kilometers increasing from 109 to 8269 billion km yr−1, and in terms of climate change impacts, with CO2 emissions increasing by a factor of 6.8–1034 Tg CO2 yr−1. Over the period 2013–2018, the growth rates in both terms show a marked increase. Here, we present a new comprehensive and quantitative approach for evaluating aviation climate forcing terms. Both radiative forcing (RF) and effective radiative forcing (ERF) terms and their sums are calculated for the years 2000–2018. Contrail cirrus, consisting of linear contrails and the cirrus cloudiness arising from them, yields the largest positive net (warming) ERF term followed by CO2 and NOx emissions. The formation and emission of sulfate aerosol yields a negative (cooling) term. The mean contrail cirrus ERF/RF ratio of 0.42 indicates that contrail cirrus is less effective in surface warming than other terms. For 2018 the net aviation ERF is +100.9 mW (mW) m−2 (5–95% likelihood range of (55, 145)) with major contributions from contrail cirrus (57.4 mW m−2), CO2 (34.3 mW m−2), and NOx (17.5 mW m−2). Non-CO2 terms sum to yield a net positive (warming) ERF that accounts for more than half (66%) of the aviation net ERF in 2018. Using normalization to aviation fuel use, the contribution of global aviation in 2011 was calculated to be 3.5 (4.0, 3.4) % of the net anthropogenic ERF of 2290 (1130, 3330) mW m−2. Uncertainty distributions (5%, 95%) show that non-CO2 forcing terms contribute about 8 times more than CO2 to the uncertainty in the aviation net ERF in 2018. The best estimates of the ERFs from aviation aerosol-cloud interactions for soot and sulfate remain undetermined. CO2-warming-equivalent emissions based on global warming potentials (GWP* method) indicate that aviation emissions are currently warming the climate at approximately three times the rate of that associated with aviation CO2 emissions alone. CO2 and NOx aviation emissions and cloud effects remain a continued focus of anthropogenic climate change research and policy discussions.

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Global radiative forcing from contrail cirrus

Ulrike Burkhardt, Bernd Kärcher (2011)

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Carbon footprint: current methods of estimation.

Madhoolika Agrawal, Jai Pandey, Divya Pandey (2011)

Increasing greenhouse gaseous concentration in the atmosphere is perturbing the environment to cause grievous global warming and associated consequences. Following the rule that only measurable is manageable, mensuration of greenhouse gas intensiveness of different products, bodies, and processes is going on worldwide, expressed as their carbon footprints. The methodologies for carbon footprint calculations are still evolving and it is emerging as an important tool for greenhouse gas management. The concept of carbon footprinting has permeated and is being commercialized in all the areas of life and economy, but there is little coherence in definitions and calculations of carbon footprints among the studies. There are disagreements in the selection of gases, and the order of emissions to be covered in footprint calculations. Standards of greenhouse gas accounting are the common resources used in footprint calculations, although there is no mandatory provision of footprint verification. Carbon footprinting is intended to be a tool to guide the relevant emission cuts and verifications, its standardization at international level are therefore necessary. Present review describes the prevailing carbon footprinting methods and raises the related issues.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): UCL Open Environ

Journal ID (publisher-id): UCLOE

Title: UCL Open Environment

Abbreviated Title: UCL Open Environ

Publisher: UCL Press (UK )

ISSN (Electronic): 2632-0886

Publication date (Electronic, pub): 29 November 2023

Publication date (Electronic, collection): 2023

Volume: 5

Electronic Location Identifier: e066

Affiliations

[1 ]Department of Geography, North-West Wing, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

[2 ]Department of Political Science, The School of Public Policy, University College London, The Rubin Building, 29/31 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9QU, UK

[3 ]Institute for Global Health, Institute of Child Health, University College London, 30 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1EH, UK

[4 ]Institute for Global Prosperity, University College London, Maple House, 149 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 7NF, UK

[5 ]UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0NN, UK

[6 ]Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction, 22 Gordon St, London WC1H 0AY, UK

Author notes

*Corresponding author: E-mail: priti.parikh@ 123456ucl.ac.uk

Author information

Priti Parikh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1086-4190

Article

DOI: 10.14324/111.444/ucloe.000066

PMC ID: 10686209

PubMed ID: 38033507

SO-VID: 1145e689-92d2-4d9e-8d50-3c42739c780c

License:

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.