Paying Carbon Taxes

If you have been reading my blog for a while you'll know that I am working towards reducing my carbon footprint and making my life much more sustainable.  Whether it's the food I eating, the products I buy or how I get around, but I've been feeling that, obviously, there's so much more I could be doing.  While I'm finding out how I can keep improving I wanted to do something that not only helps 'cover' the carbon dioxide I am still producing but also highlighted how important I think this is.

First I wanted to check what my carbon footprint actually was, so I started with WWF footprint calculator (mainly due to the simplicity of the questions - no accurate meter readings needed).  After answering all the questions it worked out my carbon footprint to be 8.1 tonnes per annum.  This number includes 3.6 tonnes for the Government's expenditure (so my personal total is 4.5 tonnes) and, while it's lower than the British average, it's higher than the world average and quite a bit higher than the target of 2 tonnes of carbon per person needed to keep us from experiencing the worse of climate change.

The WWF calculator was great in it's ease of use and I liked the advice it provided at the end as well as adding on the Government's footprint (an incentive to keep pestering them to improve).  However, I wanted to check a few other sites to get a more rounded idea of what my carbon footprint actually is.  First, I tried the Carbon Independant calculator, which still asks quite basic questions but does ask for a little bit more information.  For this calculator I was given a carbon footprint of 6.09 tonnes. 

I then tried the website Carbon Footprint.  I literally found this through searching on google, but it turns out to be a website that not only advises you on what your footprint is, but also how to reduce it and how to offset it - exactly what I was looking for.  So I answered all the usual questions (which were a little more indepth than the other websites) and got a footprint of 5.57 tonnes.  

Which I was then able to offset with different options, from UK tree planting to community projects.  This time I decided to just go for the Global Portfolio as this seems to cover a range of projects, but next time I might pick a more specific project.

The best bit for me is that I can go back after I've made some changes and see if it's made any difference to dent I'm putting into our planet, and then offset accordingly.  While I would hope to get my footprint down to the 2 tonnes needed to ensure the worst of climate change doesn't occur, I know I can use this to help me reduce my impact.  And, by showing that I am happy to pay my carbon tax I have the right to then ask it of others and to push the Government to bring the carbon tax forward as a way of helping us save our planet.