Carbon emissions

A small repo to gather values of CO2 emissions. While no value is exact, orders of magnitude are a very powerful tools in the hand of citizens.

First estimates

The carbon emission for first world countries is of the order of (see ¹) 10 tons per inhabitant per year, i.e. 30 kg/day/capita. This includes all the industrial activities of the country. But because such activities are consumed by citizens, this should give a fair idea of our consumption ! See this source (²) for more information and detailed sources.

Note that typically, “western”/1st world countries import more CO2 than they export, so the numbers tend to be under-estimated for those world countries and over-estimated for less rich manufacturing countries.

On average, agriculture represents 20% (considered directly ³) up to 30% (⁴) of greenhouse gaz emissions. This is highly country-dependent though, and this number seems only 10% in the US, where transportation accounts for 28% ! ⁵ All integrated, livestock seem to account for 18% of carbon emissions ⁶.

CO2 - power equivalence

Coal, fuel, natural gaz are of the order 1kg CO2 emission per kW.h (⁷).

In Europe, we are at ~0.3 kg / kW.h (⁸). Note that countries using coal (e.g. Germany, 2.25% of the worlds’ CO2 emissions) have larger emissions than countries using nuclear (e.g. France, 0.95% of the worlds CO2 emissions).

A light bulb consumes 15W, i.e. 360 W.h a day, i.e. 130 kW.h a year, i.e. 40 kg per year.

Clothing

Clothing represents about 10% of carbon emissions worldwide ⁹.

Flights

On average, for fuel only, a flight emits 100g per passenger km, so about 100kg per hour per passenger (¹⁰). This is an under-estimation because of the other costs, but order-of-magnitude wise consistent with more precise counts (¹¹).
This yields about 1 ton CO2 for a trans-atlantic flight, i.e. over a month of CO2 for an average person.

transportation

A modern car produces about 12kg per 100km.

Food

Food represents roughly around a quarter of mankind’s emissions ¹², i.e. on average 2.5 tons per year per inhabitant. A vegeterian diet reduces this footprint by 30%. So one can reduce their emission by 7.5% by following a vegetarian diet.

Beef has a very strong carbon footprint. A 200g steack emits about 12kg of carbon ¹³. Compare that to 1.4kg for pork and 1.2 for chicken… and 200g for the same mass of corn.

Food waste is responsible for 6% ³ to 8% ¹⁴ of greenhouse gaz emissions, consistent with about 30% of food being wasted ¹⁵.

Overall, food transport has a very limited impact on its carbon footprint. Focusing on eating less carbon-intensive sources is far more efficient than focusing on eating local ¹³.

Phones

A modern smartphone is around 90kg of CO2 ¹⁶, i.e. about 3 days worth for an average european. The usage of the smarthphone is around 315kg/year ¹⁶, i.e. about 3% of our carbon footprint.

bitcoin

Bitcoin consumes at least 50 TWh annualy ¹⁷, we represents at least 10 milion tons of CO2, and probably closer to 20 to 40 ¹⁸¹⁷.

Significant behavioural change

What do you think ?

Insignificant behavioural changes

Don’t make yourself just feel good, act useful !

References

1. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yduvmpwSneAZPP8KM5JLkEiuKH9EyOuwxH4eWTb1Bh4/edit#gid=0 ↩

2. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions ↩

3. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector ↩ ↩²

4. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-environ-020411-130608 ↩

5. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions ↩

6. http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm ↩

7. https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 ↩

8. https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/co2-emission-intensity-6#tab-googlechartid_googlechartid_googlechartid_googlechartid_chart_11111 ↩

9. https://www.worldbank.org ↩

10. https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html ↩

11. https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new ↩

12. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet ↩

13. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local ↩ ↩²

14. http://www.fao.org/3/bb144e/bb144e.pdf ↩

15. https://www.ifco.com/countries-with-the-least-and-most-food-waste/ ↩

16. https://honestmobile.co.uk/2020/08/25/whats-the-carbon-footprint-of-my-smartphone/ ↩ ↩²

17. https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption ↩ ↩²

18. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3335781 ↩