How many tons of CO2 are you responsible for?

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Rating: 4.8/5 with 5 votes

Published Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 15:07
by Editor in Save our planet (1301 views and 2 comments)

Most people know that owning a car impacts on the environment – but less are aware that buying new clothes and going out for dinner also result in CO2 pollution.

The ‘Carbon Footprint Calculator’ is a website that helps you estimate the number of tonnes of CO2 that your lifestyle amounts to. Once your footprint is calculated you can compare it to the average of your country and find out just how sustainable your lifestyle is. The average footprint of people in industrial nations is 11 tonnes. In comparison the world average is 4 tons – and will have to be reduced to half if we are to fight climate change.

Without doubt the modern way of life is a threat to clean air. The Japanese government has taken action to prevent pollution from consumption. In Japan the law says that the most energy efficient consumer products must be standard within five years. Environmental NGOs have called for the introduction of similar laws in Europe.

How far should the EU go more to ensure eco-friendly lifestyles? When is a sustainable lifestyle the responsibility of the individual citizen – and when should the EU pass laws?

Tags: climate change, CO2, consumer

Comments

1. Debate in another community by editor on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 11:29

There's a thread on this post on another debate site: http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2008/1/9/91939/01445

Thanks for your comments from the Yourspace team - it's always nice to hear from Eurotrib users! The calculator was mostly intended as an eye opener. For sure emissions from production and other CO2 sources matters, but it’s never pointless to make an individual effort - and we wanted to hear people's opinion on what's individual responsibility.

If you want to try other calculators (there are quite a few out there) a bunch shows up on Google. It's possible that some of them might include ‘baseline’ emissions.
 

2. Changes by nanne in berlin on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 20:13

The Japanese policy is also known as the 'top-runner' approach. It's a good policy. DG Environment is considering/planning to implement it for the EU as well, I've gathered.

The main failure of our 'modern' economy is that the cost caused by environmental pollution is not borne by the polluter. The role of the EU is to make sure that at least that cost becomes internalised. Insofar as that can't be done, and right now it's difficult to do on the product level, there is a need for compensating policy.

A quite different role is to drive innovation in order to make sure that the EU has an economy that is readied, so to speak, for the future. The top-runner approach is good both as compensating policy and as an innovation policy.

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