If the climate could buy insurance against human air travel it probably would. You can help by 'offsetting' your flights . Offsetting means supporting projects that take CO2 out of the atmosphere to counterbalance the your share of the emissions from your flight. Using 'soil carbon' and 'domestic energy efficiency' projects, My Clean Sky helps to remove greenhouse gases produced by airliners.
Carbon calculator. Three easy steps. 1. Enter name of departure airport or city - click 'Select'. 2. Enter name of the airport or city you arrived in - even as a stopover - click 'Select'. If it is a return trip, click the 'Return Trip. 3. Add subsequent destinations in the same box. Flight itinerary is under the map. To offset your flight, click "Purchase Carbon Offset".
Return Trip:
Passengers:
Offset
% (Please Explain)
Offset full warming impact of flight use 190%
My Clean Sky calculates air travel emissions, educates the public, buys and retires carbon credits against your air travel emissions.
My Clean Sky supports two different carbon reduction projects to offset your emissions: soil carbon and domestic energy efficiency.
Soil Carbon Carbon credits are generated through sustainable farming practices that promote the capture of carbon di-oxide from the atmosphere, returning carbon to the soil.
Through the purchase of these credits, farmers are paid to transition to new sustainable farming practices.
How to use our carbon offset calculator:
Search for an airport by entering an airport code or the name of
the city where the aiport is located. You can also search using partial
words. Scroll through the suggestions to select your option.
Click the "Add flight" button to select the ports. These
will be plotted on the map.
Select the arrival and destination ports and they will also be plotted
on the map and added to the calculation and a leg summary is displayed
below the map.
Select the number of passengers and the class of ticket. You can
also change the percentage you wish to offset.
Pay via secure credit transaction. with Visa or Mastercard at the
ANZ Bank in Australia.
You are then returned to the site and a certificate and receipt
are issued. You also receive an email confirmation.
Last time I went to London I took a swim in the Persian Gulf.
We want you to know that air travel carbon calculations that exclude stop-overs misrepresent the true carbon impact of air travel. We made the My Clean Sky carbon calculator to make it easy to include stopovers, shown below.
Check our users guide to the calculator below.
Frank Admission: We at My Clean Sky built the 'one box calculator' seeking to make it easier to do more accurate flight calculations that included multiple stop overs. Unfortunately, we made the calculator 'non-intuitive' to many users. So we are going back to a more standard format. Coming
My Clean Sky flight carbon offset calcultor calculates the distance between airports following great circle routes. A great circle is a line between to points on the globe that follows the curvature of the earth. This closely repesents the path the plane would fly assuming it went straight from one airport to the next. The flight is determined to be short, medium or long haul and is allocated a certain number of grams CO2 per passenger per kilometer.
The additional warming effect associated with non-CO2 greenhouse gases produced by jet engines at altitude is referred to as 'radiative forcing'. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their 1999 report states that radiative forcing is 2-5 times greater than CO2 warming alone and that 2.7 is the average figure. A more contemporary update suggests that 1.9 is a more appropriate figure.
My Clean Sky currently excludes a value for the Radiative Forcing Index from its calculations.
However, users who do wish to include the radiative forcing index in their calculation can add it by multiplying their emissions by 270% or 190% in the 'Percentage to Offset' box on the calculator.
There are over 50 different types of aircraft used in international air travel and each has a different carbon footprint.
The plane type is an average modelled in the DEFRA report. The average plane is a theoretical plane that represents a weighted average of the most commonly used airliners.
My Clean Sky's carbon calculator simplifies the complexities of estimating air travel greenhouse emissions.
The information below describes the seperate elements of the calculation method.
Element
Description
My Clean Sky air travel carbon calculator
Simple and flexible model
A good air travel carbon calculator will be simple to use and as well as flexible. For example the calculator must be able to be easily updated to accomodate new variables as they become available.
My Clean Sky calculates the distance between two airports, and assigns a certain number of grams CO2e per kilometer according to three distance classes. Then this figure is multiplied to include the radiative forcing index. Other parameters such as single/return flight are added, as well as seat class. The calculator will be updated with all new data as it becomes available.
International Standard
Air travel calculators should be based on an internationally recognised system developed by a respected and relevant institution.
My Clean Sky calculator is based on aviation emissions calculation developed by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The WBCSD figures are based on research by DEFRA, the British Environment Department.
Seat Class
Economy, Business Class and First Class all have different seat sizes. The larger the seat, the less people sit on a plane and thus the larger share per person for the total emissions.
The My Clean Sky air flight carbon offset calculator assumes all seats are economy class. However, users can select Business Class or First Class. Business and First Class attract an additional carbon weighting which is defined by the WBCSD.
Comparisons
According to Dimitri Simos, director at Lissys Limited, supplier of an aircraft performance model previously used by the UK government and the basis for the ICAO estimate of airline emissions, "If you go from Heathrow to Athens, ICAO gives 217 kilograms (kg) of CO2. That hides huge variations - fly in a full (Boeing) B767 and it's nearer to 160 kg per person, or fly in a half-empty (Airbus) A340 and it's more like 360 kg."
Comparing the My Clean Sky air travel emissions calculator the Lissys Limited range and the ICAO calculator, for the London to Athens trip, the My Clean Sky calculator shows 262 kg CO2.
262 kg CO2 is within the range specified by Lissys Limited Calculations (160 - 360 kg) and is only 45 kg or 20% higher than the ICAO calculation.
It is important to remember, however, the additional warming effect associated with non-CO2 gases. Give that the full effect of these is between 2-5 times the warming effect of the CO2 the minor variances in CO2 estimation from different caclulators is actually a relatively minor consideration. The key thing is to use a sound methodology and offset your emissions. The biosphere is patient, but arguing over decimal points doesn't make a difference.
