Dubai
It’s easy to rack up carbon emissions from the minute you wake up to the moment you climb into bed.
Starting with the bathroom, a leisurely 10-minute shower can use upwards of 80 gallons of water and generates 1.8kg of carbon emissions.
Letting the tap run while brushing teeth continues to worsen the emission load, as a running tap can waste six litres of water in one minute. That makes a five-minute brush and rinse session bring the morning’s total up to approximately two kg of carbon emissions.
As the day progresses and it is time to go in to work or school, one’s choice of transport is a determining factor of environmental impact.
According to the US-based Environment Protection Agency (EPA), a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.8 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s equivalent to burning 2,338 kilograms of coal. Travelling for a cumulative 50km to and from your workplace then, adds approximately 396kg of carbon emissions to your daily footprint.
When determining lunch or dinner options, whether you are a meat eater or not, has an impact. A study in the journal Climactic Change, found that an average 2,000 calorie high-meat diet produces 2.5 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the average vegan diet.
According to ShrinkThatFootprint.com, 60 per cent of food energy consumed by people – regardless of whether they are vegetarian or meat lovers – remains the same. At a minimum, our food accounts for 0.7 tons of carbon emissions per year. However, those who have a high-meat diet add 2.6 tons to their footprint, against a vegetarian’s one ton and a vegan’s 0.8 tons, each year.
In daily terms, for the average meat-eating UAE resident, a day’s worth of meals add 189kg, bringing the footprint total up to 587kg of carbon emissions.
Returning from work or school, a person’s electricity usage at home continues to expand one’s carbon footprint.
In the average home, 75 per cent of the electricity used to power electronics and appliances is consumed while the products are turned off. So unplugging can save not just carbon emissions, but help reduce the electricity bill as well!
Lighting adds to the footprint. Switching to compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs can immediately cut down carbon emissions, as they use half the energy of regular bulbs.
Even the air conditioner’s temperature has an effect. Turning up the thermostat by just one degree Celsius could help reduce the energy you use for cooling the home by 10 per cent.
According to the Federal Electricity and Water Authority (Fewa) the average UAE resident uses about 25 kilowatt hours of electricity a day, which equates to 17.5kg of carbon emissions.
The clothes we wear also have a bearing on our carbon footprint. For the life cycle of a single clothing item, including washing and drying, research has found that the carbon emissions add up to a total of more than 10 kilograms. However, reducing one’s clothing footprint is a much more difficult task, as finding organically grown, zero carbon clothes is a tough task.
At day’s end, the carbon emission total stands at approximately 605kg. That’s the same as driving 2,318km, from Dubai to Agra, India. To offset it, you would need to plant 16 tree seedlings and allow them to grow for 10 years.
Wouldn’t it be easier to make small, impactful changes every day?
