Traveling means discovering other countries, cultures and cities. But travel also means worsening the climate footprint. We can help determine how climate-friendly we travel by choosing the means of transport.
Every summer brings new extreme weather events, every new climate report contains new and old warnings and calls for quick action. We feel like we’re racing towards an abyss and still we can’t stop traveling. Every trip has a direct environmental impact.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, eight to eleven percent of global CO2 emissions are caused by tourism. The majority of this is due to arrival and departure. The longer the distance, the more CO2 is emitted. However, the choice of transport often makes the difference. In a comparative study, the Federal Environment Agency writes that blanket statements such as “a train journey has less environmental impact than a car journey” is not always correct.
According to the Global Carbon Budget Report, humanity emitted 36.6 billion tons of CO2 this year. In 1950, global CO2 emissions were only six billion tons, but in 1990 they were already 22 billion tons.
mobility and carbon dioxide
Whether bus, train, plane, ship or car, every means of transport has to be powered, and this requires energy. This often (still) comes from fossil sources such as oil or gas. When fuel is burned in conventional cars or aircraft fueled with kerosene, climate-damaging carbon dioxide is released, which enters the atmosphere and heats it up. The transport sector is one of the major contributors to man-made climate change.
Are we traveling more consciously and in a more climate-friendly way?
Can we travel more sustainably thanks to this knowledge? Not really, says Bente Grimm, head of tourism mobility research at the Institute for Tourism and Pool Research in Northern Europe (NIT). The desire to see the world and the desire to behave in a climate-friendly manner often collide, and in the end the desire to travel often prevails, says Grimm.
According to the Reiseanalyse 2022 of the research association Holidays and Travel in Germany, 55.1 million trips and 44.8 million short trips were undertaken in 2021. 34 percent chose the plane for longer trips and five percent for short vacations. Most Germans still go on vacation by car. The small rest is divided between bus and train. If you ask around – how climate-conscious do your friends and acquaintances actually travel? Everyone knows that flying has the highest CO2 emissions. She doesn’t travel that environmentally conscious, says Severine Lenglet from France, for example, who often travels the Berlin – Paris route by plane. But she is looking forward to 2023, because at the end of the year there should be a new rail connection between the capitals, “then we can finally go by train”. And what about families with children? “We usually use a rental car when we go on vacation,” says Anne Kolerus from Berlin. The reason is, on the one hand, the large amount of luggage and, on the other hand, the often lacking infrastructure at the destination. With the plane in the summer vacation? Not an option for family man Julian Schrögel from Frankfurt. If at all, then for a long-distance trip, but it must take four to six weeks.
Why is the desire for climate-friendly travel not implemented? Swantje Lehners, CEO of KlimaLink, sees the reason primarily in the fact that sustainable options are not recognizable and comparable. The association wants to change that and has set itself the goal of developing a uniform standard for calculating CO2 emissions. The tool for this will be available by early 2024.
So what are the climate effects of travel in detail? And how can they be reduced without completely eliminating the trip? Let’s take an example: a city trip from Berlin to London.
Climate balance of the city trip
2200 kilometers have to be covered for the outward and return journey. In the back of your mind: carbon footprint, time, budget. You can choose between your own car, the bike-ship combination, the plane, the train and the bus. Two people are traveling in April 2023.
The calculation of the emissions for the respective means of transport is complicated on closer inspection. Different factors are often involved. This makes comparability difficult. While MyClimate includes the infrastructure and production for cars and flights, these are left out in the Quarks calculator. All the calculators take into account the non-CO2 emissions from air traffic. Because not only CO2 is emitted on a flight. Other pollutants are produced, which make the climate impact of a flight look significantly worse. These include nitrogen oxides, water vapor and small particles such as soot. Soot particles promote the formation of contrails and can cause cirrus clouds to form at high altitudes. What looks beautiful has an impact on global warming.
When traveling by train, on the other hand, you have to check whether the train runs on diesel or electronically, then the energy mix is important. For cars, the more people, the more distributed the CO2 emissions. Taking the infrastructure into account, rail transport has higher emissions than airplanes. On the pure route, however, so much CO2 is emitted when flying that this is offset.
Fly or not?
For the city trip, which is planned from Thursday to Monday, the 3.15 hours travel time by plane is quite flattering. Bente Grimm explains in an interview: “When flying, long-distance travel is more harmful because more CO2 is emitted. However, short trips are often undertaken by those who have already traveled long distances. It makes more sense to look at a person’s total emissions per year.” Grimm adds that anyone who wants to behave sustainably must radically reduce their air travel.
The bike-ship option and the journey by bus are not possible due to the long journey. It would even be possible to cross the canal completely CO2-neutral if the wind is good. From spring 2023 the route can be crossed by sailing boat.
Remain car and train. Felix Creutzig, Professor of Infrastructure and Climate Change at the Technical University of Berlin, addresses the high inefficiency of the car due to the low utilization and the mass to be moved. “You can get to London by train and that’s why you should do it,” says Creutzig.
Climate-friendly travel – now and in the future
Seeing the sheer size of London, wandering through Hackney or Soho, marveling at iconic architecture and drinking beer in a typical pub – it definitely has a great appeal. In addition, the trip generates income for all those who live from tourism – that’s also important. But since transport is responsible for a large part of global CO2 emissions, we could reconsider our transport choices and stay longer in one place instead of taking multiple vacations. It is also important, says Bente Grimm, to understand the route as an experience and journey and to recognize the exoticism in nearby holiday destinations.
But making travel climate-friendly does not just depend on us. “It is important to talk about transport infrastructure and not just hold individuals accountable. For climate-friendly travel, there must be climate-neutral, reliable offers,” says Felix Creutzig. He sees the responsibility of the state and cities.
Scientists see another lever in depicting the actual environmental costs of air travel, then fewer people would probably fly automatically.
Author: Lisa Stuve