It's time to see how well I've been doing at reducing my carbon emissions this last year. What have I done well, and what could I still improve?
This covers all significant journeys which are or could be flights - not taking the train to the next town over, taking the bus or doing other things with no flight alternative.
This doesn't take into account the different costs of these trips - it would take a long time to find all the costs, and I can't make great estimates for alternative flight options. However, I can certainly say in terms of experience : I enjoy the flight-free journeys far more on average, even when they were longer. Long ferry journeys, overnight trains, even whole days aboard trains - all were more enjoyable than flying, and I was able to take luggage and liquids freely.
Per hour of travel, flight-free travel can be very cheap - the only problem is the greater number of hours it so often takes! The flights below range from very cheap budget flights all the way to transatlantic carriers, so the price and quality of these experiences also varied widely.
Flight figures calculated at https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new , other modes at https://www.goclimate.com/travel-calculator .
Flights Taken
| Journey | Reason | Tonnes CO2e |
|---|---|---|
| EIN to VNO | Business | 0.329 |
| VNO to CDG via WAW | " " | 0.486 |
| AMS to BFS | Family / Leisure | 0.230 |
| ORK to AMS | " " | 0.252 |
| FRA to ATL | " " | 1.400 |
| ATL to FRA | " " | 1.400 |
| AMS to HEL | Business / Leisure | 0.352 |
| HEL to AMS | " " | 0.352 |
| BCN to BRU | Business | 0.281 |
| TOTAL | - | 5.082 |
Flights Avoided
| Flight | Flight-free alternative (tonnes CO2e) | Tonnes CO2 avoided |
|---|---|---|
| AMS to BER | NS trains Weert to Rotterdam, then European Sleeper overnight to Berlin Hbf (0.054) | 0.337 |
| CDG to RNS | TGV (0.012) | 0.145 |
| RNS to PRG | TGV Rennes to Brussels Midi, European Sleeper to Prague Hlavni (0.062) | 0.236 |
| PRG to LNZ | CD Railjet Prague to Amstetten via Wien Hbf (0.016) | 0.120 |
| LNZ to BGY | OEBB train Amstetten to Salzburg, then Nightjet to Milan Rogoredo, Trenord to Seregno (0.029) | 0.146 |
| ZMS to AMS | Florence to Bologna Italo train, EC to Innsbruck Hbf, Nightjet to Amsterdam Centraal (0.049) | 0.228 |
| EIN to MAN | NS train to Rotterdam Ctl, Eurostar to LSP, Avanti to Manchester Piccadilly (0.031) | 0.164 |
| LPL to INV | Northern and TPE trains from L. Lime St. to Edinburgh Waverley, then Scotrail to Inverness (0.021) | 0.159 |
| INV to MAN | Scotrail Inverness to Glasgow, Avanti to Crewe, TFW to Shrewsbury (0.020) | 0.161 |
| MAN to FRA | Shrewsbury to London with TfWM and Avanti, Eurostar to Brussels Midi, ICE to Mainz via Koln Hbf, S bahn to FRA (0.036) | 0.204 |
| EIN to LNZ | NS to Utrecht Centraal, Nightjet to Linz Hbf (0.032) | 0.412 |
| LNZ to EIN | Nightjet to Linz Hbf, NS from Utrecht Centraal (0.032) | 0.412 |
| EIN to ORY | Flixbus (0.059) | 0.104 |
| ORY to BCN | SNCF sleeper to Toulouse Matabiau, TERs to Llanca, R-trains to Barcelona Sants (0.037) | 0.202 |
| BRU to BHX | SNCB to Brussels Midi, Eurostar to LSP, LNWR to Birmingham New Street (0.022) | 0.157 |
| BHX to EIN | Birmingham New Street to London Euston, LSP to Brussels Midi Eurostar, Flixbus to Eindhoven and NS train home (0.027) | 0.158 |
| TOTAL | 0.539 | 3.345 |
Summary
CO2 emitted from 2023 to 2024 (tonnes CO2e)
- Total flights = 5.082
- Total flight-free journeys* = 0.539
- Total avoided via flight free options = 3.345
Last roundup - Sept. 2022 to 2023 (tonnes CO2e)
- Total flights = 4.731
- Total flight-free journeys* = 0.779
- Total avoided via flight free options = 2.595
*That's these significant flight-free journeys - not counting all the times I took trains for domestic journeys, or other routes where flying was never going to be an option
For reference, 9.54 tonnes is the average annual CO2 emissions for a Dutch person. About 19% of those come from transport , so the transport-related CO2 average per capita is 1,813 tonnes...
So in short, approximately:
- Total transport CO2 2024 = 5.621 tonnes
- 3x the Dutch national average
- 35% of potential flying emissions avoided using flight free options
Figures from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1291769/per-capita-transportation-co2-emissions-worldwide-by-country and https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/netherlands#what-share- of-global-cumulative-co2-has-the-country-emitted
Analysis
This year's 5.621 tonnes CO2e of total transport emissions is similar to last year's 5.510 but slightly up (approx. 2% increase), especially as that last analysis included a few months of 2022...
This year was a bit different, with business and leisure trips alike crammed into a smaller number of months. Again, one transatlantic family visit accounted for well over half the flight total. I also took a return flight to Helsinki, which roughly equated to a one-way transatlantic flight as well. There is nothing I can realistically do to cut out the transatlantic flight, especially as I am already limiting this to one return trip per year: I am under pressure to take two or three! It can be very hard with family members who do not value/understand/care about climate change...
My overall number of flights taken was down, and would have been lower had I not flown to Ireland for a family visit or to Brussels for work. Both trips could have been done without flying, especially the latter as it was a solo work trip. I did that trip (from Barcelona) without flying in 2023, and will do so again flight-free in 2025. It wasn't worth the slight time/money saving!
My overall number of flight-free trips increased, however, and my amount of carbon avoided actually increased by about 29% (2.595 to 3.345 tonnes CO2e). Most business trips have been accomplished without flying, with Helsinki and Vilnius being the key exceptions. Here, the issue for flight-free travel from NL becomes more time than money. I need something like 48-72 hours for a flight-free trip from here, which takes more planning and makes coordinating with others very difficult. Not that I won't attempt it, but that's why it didn't happen this year.
Thankfully new options are opening up here - the 3 Baltic countries recently synchronized their train timetables to allow for through-connections on international travel, and there is now a Poland-Lithuania train.
Let's see how it goes in 2025 - I'll do my best to really get a reduction this year!
Add comment
Comments