There is a growing realisation that
climate change is a reality and not a myth. Air travel is now the
fastest-growing contributor to global warming, and avoiding a flight when there
are easy alternatives is probably the biggest single thing that any individual
can do to cut their carbon footprint and limit their own impact on the environment.
No wonder many people are now looking for less environmentally-hostile ways to
travel.
It's not an exact science, and I'm
certainly no expert, but Eurostar has done its homework and
commissioned independent research to assess the CO2 per passenger produced
by a London-Paris Eurostar journey versus that emitted by a passenger on a
London-Paris flight. The
research looked at actual Eurostar passenger loadings, actual Eurostar power
consumption, the way Eurostar's electricity is generated, actual aircraft
loadings, actual aircraft fuel consumption, and so on. The conclusion was
remarkable: Taking the train to Paris instead of flying cuts CO2 emissions
per passenger not
just by 10% or 20% or even 50%, but by a staggering 90%...
And with airport security tightened,
check-ins up to 2½ hours even for a one-hour
flight, plus the time and cost involved in getting to and from remote airports
at each end, taking the train city centre to city centre could cut your stress
levels by a similar percentage!
Incidentally, the environmental
benefit of taking the train instead of a plane is probably much greater than 90%.
Airliners emit their CO2 directly into the upper atmosphere,
where it is likely to do over twice the damage (an estimated 2.7 times the damage,
in fact) of
the same quantity of CO2 emitted at ground level.
Here are some estimated comparisons
(showing CO2 quantities alone, excluding the upper atmosphere effect):
CO2 emissions per passenger...
|
|
Journey: |
Out & back by plane... |
Out
& back by train... |
|
London to Paris
by Eurostar |
3.5
hours, 244 Kg/CO2 |
2.75
hours, 22 Kg/CO2 |
|
London to Edinburgh |
3.5
hours, 193 Kg/CO2 |
4.5
hours, 24 Kg/CO2 |
|
London to Nice |
4
hours, 250 Kg/CO2 |
8
hours by Eurostar+TGV, 36 Kg/CO2 |
|
London to Barcelona |
4.5
hours, 277 Kg/CO2 |
Eurostar then overnight sleeper, 40 Kg/CO2 |
|
London to Tangier |
5
hours, 435 Kg/CO2 |
48
hours by Eurostar, sleeper trains & ferry, 63 Kg/CO2 |
Source:
The Observer, 29 January 2006
&
www.eurostar.com.
Times are centre-to-centre, each way. Kg/CO2 is for a return journey.
Apart from producing 10 times less CO2 than an equivalent flight, Eurostar has
now pledged to reduce its own emissions by 25% by 2012, and to offset every
traveller's CO2 free of charge as from November 2007, making Eurostar journeys
carbon-neutral at no cost to travellers. Eurostar has also launched a 'tread lightly'
initiative, looking at recycling their own waste and that collected off the
trains. Full marks to Eurostar... For more information on these initiatives
and on Eurostar's emissions research, see
www.eurostar.com/environment.
Accurate figures for other types of train are few and far between. But
high-speed TGVs across France are technically similar to Eurostar and use
electricity from the same sources, so are likely to make a similar environmental
saving as Eurostar when compared to flying. Sleeper trains across France
to Italy, Spain or the south of France may have fewer passengers per car than a
high-speed train such as Eurostar, but counterbalancing this is that they
generally travel at only 100mph or less, which requires much less energy than a
power-hungry 186mph high-speed train. A sleeper train still carries
several hundred passengers with one conventional locomotive, whereas Eurostar
has two big power-cars plus two more powered bogies in the adjacent passenger
coaches as well. So sleeper trains are also likely to make a significant
saving on CO2 emissions when compared to flying.
For more information
on air travel emissions and reducing your carbon footprint, see
www.co2balance.co.uk
or
www.flightpledge.org.uk.
Alternatives to flying...
The
alternatives to flying are easier and more practical than you may think. For
step-by-step instructions on how to plan and book train travel from the UK to
almost any country in Europe on this website, just use the menu to the left.
Doing yourself a favour, as well as the
planet...
There's another good reason for taking the train instead of flying. In an
increasingly globalised world, where every flight is the same stressful
non-experience, trains and ships
show you more of the country you're visiting and its culture. On business,
train travel can be productive, with room to work and powerpoints for laptops on
many trains at first class seats. On leisure journeys, time together on
the train can actually be quality time with your loved ones. You might
just find a train journey a more interesting and rewarding experience that in
reality doesn't take that much longer than flying...
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