Stories

CO2 Emmissions

I am coming back from Boston to Paris. This is 5500km in just 6h. That journey produced approximately 1t of CO2 for every passenger in the airplane [1]. In 2016, I traveled 110,900 km by airplane. This is roughly 3 times around the globe. In total, this travels produced an amount of 23 tons of CO2. With a world population of more than 7,000,000,000 (7 billion), and a C02 production of 35,000,000,000 (35 billion), that leaves an average annual emission of 5 tons per person on earth.

Compared to my emission of 23 tons in 2016, this is 17 tons more than average, or 3.6 times more than the average. However, CO2 emissions are not equally distributed across the planet. Some nations emit much more than others. For example, the total emissions of the US amount to 17.1 tons per US citizen (on average), 9.2 for Germany, 6.8 for the European Union, 5.9 tons for China, 5.6 for Sweden. Other countries have a much much smaller fingerprint, such as India (1.6 tons per person) or Madagascar (0.1 tons = 100 kg).

Within the Paris climate accord from 2017, the EU and the US have pledged to reduce their emissions by 85% each, which leaves around 2.5 tons per US citizen and 1 ton per EU citizen. As European citizen, this leaves me exactly one transatlantic flight (without return). And really just that, no other travels and transports, no clothes, no heating, no computer, no electricity, no food.

[1] CO2 calculators: https://www.atmosfair.de/en/kompensieren, http://uic.org/ecopassenger

Uganda Aid Program

Like the most Ugandans, the 14-year-old girl lives in a rural area, in a situation of poverty., largely depending on subsistence agriculture and extremely vulnerable to environmental shocks and stresses: a year with lower rainfall then usual is likely to lever her and her siblings severely malnourished. However, if her family is supported to diversity their assets by planing a wider variety of crops and engage in small-scale marked enterprise, they are better able to spread their risks and are therefore more resilient. The increased household income will improve the changes that the 14-year-old girl and her siblings will attend school, thus decreasing the likelihood the girl will fall pregnant or marry while still in her teens. Greater household purchasing power will increase access to healthcare services and improve the family's health. If the woman in the family are supported to engage with the market, the balance of financial power in the family will become more equitable, slowing population grows.