Building understanding of per-capita emissions by tracking our own. Family carbon audit for 2023.

Takeaways

2023 emissions were about 8.01 tonnes of CO2-equivalent, down 13% from the year before.

Here is a breakdown of how 2023 compared to prior years:

Good

We did actually further reduce emissions this year, even though I expected an increase. The reason for the increase would be that we moved to a house instead of an apartment, and the house is old and has limited insulation.

Still, that increase was offset by taking less emissive flights to the US - despite a trip in the summer and a first half of a trip in December, total flight emissions vs. the Iceland route were down a tonne and a half. I’m not entirely sure why honestly? Is Icelandair just using super inefficient planes, or is the route a lot longer?

Getting the home opens the door to - effectively - negative emissions by buying solar panels and selling power that reduces gas and coal electric production.

Bad

We still haven’t done anything to reduce emissions from food, and flying remains a massive issue.

Actions

• Review ways to reduce our food emissions
• Try and find electrofuel flights?

Methodology

Same as in 2018