How much CO2 do you generate every day?
The average man, woman and child living in the United Kingdom directly or indirectly generates about 22 kilograms of greenhouse gases per day.
This is equivalent to the weight of the average 7 year old child [1].
This can be broken down as follows.
| Origin of CO2 | Kilograms per person in UK per day |
| Transport | 5.1 |
| Electricity | 4.2 |
| Breathing (assuming low – moderate exercise) | 3 |
| Domestic gas consumption | 2.8 |
| Gas consumed at work | 2.8 |
| Gas consumed by industry | 0.4 |
| Gas to public buildings | 0.3 |
| Agriculture | 0.2 |
| International shipping | 0.2 |
| Adjustment for land use | -0.5 |
| Total CO2 | 18.6 |
| Other greenhouse gases | 3.6 |
| Total Greenhouse gases | 22.2 |
Most of this data is derived from data from the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy [2].
We base our calculations on an estimated UK population of 64,769,452 [3].
Note that the figure for transport excludes international aviation and shipping. The table shows the estimate for international shipping separately. This is based upon the figures for UK and global shipping emissions given by [4], [5], [7] and shipping volumes give by [6].
International aviation figures indicate that the emissions per person per year are negligible according to figures in [8] and [9].
References
[1] https://www.disabled-world.com/calculators-charts/height-weight-teens.php
[2] 2018 figures derived from Table 1: UK annual greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-2018, headline results given in 2018 UK GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS, PROVISIONAL FIGURES published by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy available from
Click to access 2018-provisional-emissions-statistics-report.pdf
[3] https://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/demographics_profile.html
[4] https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/Global-shipping-GHG-emissions-2013-2015_ICCT-Report_17102017_vF.pdf
[5] https://www.co2.earth/global-co2-emissions
[6] http://www.worldshipping.org/about-the-industry/global-trade/trade-statistics
[7] http://www.worldshipping.org/about-the-industry/global-trade/trade-statistics
[8] https://www.atag.org/facts-figures.html
[9] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/761562/avi0105.ods?_ga=2.189076971.1130216601.1566653256-331351237.1524763222