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> After all, a carbon offset for a round-trip cross-country commercial flight is about $10 which can at least mitigate that impact. That uses an offset price o

> After all, a carbon offset for a round-trip cross-country commercial flight is about $10 which can at least mitigate that impact. That uses an offset price of $7/ton, which seems rather low. Otherwise, offsetting the world's emissions would be only about $200b a year (.2% of world economy)

Dylan16807 8y ago
$10 per ticket, not per plane.
- usaar333 8y ago
  I'm using 1.5 tons/ticket. Source: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    You're right, I got the wrong number.
  - nrb 8y ago
    That site appears to be changing tons per ticket based on flight class to try to capture a higher donation.
    - usaar333 8y ago
      That's simply because higher classes occupy more space and thus proportionately are responsible for a higher percent of emissions. https://www.myclimate.org/fileadmin/myc/files_myc_perf/12_flight_calculator_documentation_EN.pdf https://www.myclimate.org/fileadmin/myc/files_myc_perf/12_fl...
nrb 8y ago
I pulled that number from http://co2offsets.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ua/offsets http://co2offsets.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ua/offs... which takes into account origin and destination, any additional legs, and month of the year. SFO -> JFK direct round-trip in July for about 0.9 metric tons
- usaar333 8y ago
  The actual emissions aren't too controversial (calculator I used ends up ~50% higher), but the offsetting price is very controversial. (source I linked to seems to use $30/ton, 3x United's) The problem with a voluntary offsetting regime to calculate damage prices is that the clearing price is the marginal cost of abatement for a voluntarily requested amount of CO2 to be abated. As more CO2 is requested to be abated, the marginal costs go up (less low hanging fruit like planting trees). Regardless, while you might feel good that you paid $10/ton to abate your flight, the reality is that if everyone else did this, you'd be paying a lot more than $10/ton. A fun read: http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/explain.pdf http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/explain.pdf (There's also controversy whether a project that produces X abatement credits really is abating that much carbon, but that's another story).
  - nrb 8y ago
    Interesting paper, thanks for sharing!

Dylan16807 8y ago

$10 per ticket, not per plane.

usaar333 8y ago
I'm using 1.5 tons/ticket. Source: https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new https://co2.myclimate.org/en/flight_calculators/new
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  You're right, I got the wrong number.
- nrb 8y ago
  That site appears to be changing tons per ticket based on flight class to try to capture a higher donation.
  - usaar333 8y ago
    That's simply because higher classes occupy more space and thus proportionately are responsible for a higher percent of emissions. https://www.myclimate.org/fileadmin/myc/files_myc_perf/12_flight_calculator_documentation_EN.pdf https://www.myclimate.org/fileadmin/myc/files_myc_perf/12_fl...

nrb 8y ago

I pulled that number from http://co2offsets.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ua/offsets http://co2offsets.sustainabletravelinternational.org/ua/offs... which takes into account origin and destination, any additional legs, and month of the year. SFO -> JFK direct round-trip in July for about 0.9 metric tons

usaar333 8y ago
The actual emissions aren't too controversial (calculator I used ends up ~50% higher), but the offsetting price is very controversial. (source I linked to seems to use $30/ton, 3x United's) The problem with a voluntary offsetting regime to calculate damage prices is that the clearing price is the marginal cost of abatement for a voluntarily requested amount of CO2 to be abated. As more CO2 is requested to be abated, the marginal costs go up (less low hanging fruit like planting trees). Regardless, while you might feel good that you paid $10/ton to abate your flight, the reality is that if everyone else did this, you'd be paying a lot more than $10/ton. A fun read: http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/explain.pdf http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/explain.pdf (There's also controversy whether a project that produces X abatement credits really is abating that much carbon, but that's another story).
- nrb 8y ago
  Interesting paper, thanks for sharing!