Earlier this year, I travelled to Gibraltar to deliver a Carbon Literacy course and decided to use the opportunity to dig into the real carbon cost of getting there. Rather than flying, I took the slower but more scenic route by train through London, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid. It turned into both an adventure and a useful comparison of the carbon footprints of different ways to travel between the UK and Gibraltar.
In this blog, I share what I found using real calculations to compare the emissions from flying versus travelling by train and reflect on what those numbers might mean for how we all think about our travel choices.
In my lovely adventure to Gibraltar earlier this year, I was lucky enough to be sponsored to travel there by train (via London, Paris, Barcelona and Madrid and slower on the way back for a great holiday break) rather than being forced to take flights.
However, my partner DID fly there to meet me, so you could say I was in some way ‘responsible’ for 1 flight this year even if I wasn’t on the plane.
Other comparison sites are available, but I used this site (https://ecopassenger.org) to compare the footprint between different travel modes – it gives you the option of adding in the ‘climate factor’ to flights i.e. additional warming impact of the flights delivering carbon emissions at altitude. I have shown the figures with and without the climate factor added in.
The Numbers
This is for 1-way travel from UK to Gibraltar, so my total carbon footprint for the travel part of my adventure (if just considering my footprint and not my partners!) was 0.13 tonnes of CO2.
Here’s a different calculation based on breaking the travel down to the exact train stop-offs:
My actual train journey stop-offs brought the footprint calculation up to 0.14 tonnes of CO2 emitted but massively improved my adventure, as I was then able to explore 3 further cities on the way there and on the way home (Paris-Barcelona-Madrid).
I’d never been to Madrid before and it’s a thoroughly wonderful place.
If I’d done the same exact journey by plane (using the same stop-offs) the impact is 10 times higher than the trains at 1.18 tonnes.
And even worse for the same route but with the ‘climate factor’ added in for flying (total tonnes = 1.5T CO2):
So, as I like to be ‘fair’ about how I calculate impacts, I should really be adding in for some of the accommodation I stayed in along the way (a mixture of hotels, a friend’s spare room and some booking.com apartments) but honestly, I would’ve been having some kind of accommodation impact, had I been just sat at home. This trip did REALLY hammer home how essential cooling is becoming in parts of mainland Spain, even relatively early in the summer in June ☹.
So, by my calculations my impacts for the train trips there and back for me, plus my partner’s one flight for him plus trains home = 0.58 Tonnes CO2 – not bad at all really considering I had 17 days away (a welcome break from life and work) and a 10-day adventure across Europe by train, heading home with my partner.
So what’s stopping you?
(I know, I know… COSTS, KIDS, TIME, PARENTS, OTHER CARING NEEDS)… but if these don’t apply to you, really what is stopping you…?).
I’ll be dropping nice pics of my adventure on the way.
Like, when have you been able to say – “I just walked from the conference to the beach for a quick swim before I walked to the airport to pick you up honey…!!” – THIS IS REAL! Although I did get told off for being 10 minutes late!! Some things never change 😉
Happy to field any questions on my calculations…