flight premium from San Francisco to Los Angeles is a common trip for some Californians and can generate a carbon footprint of 101kg, or maybe 142kg or even 366kg – depending on where you search online.
The wide-ranging estimates stem from what some climate experts see as a growing problem, of which Google is at the center. More and more people are trying to incorporate climate change impacts into life choices, such as where to vacation or what to eat. However, scientists are still debating how to accurately estimate the impact of many activities, including flying or producing meat. While the math worked out, some industries condemned the emissions estimates as unfair.
Google is leading the charge among big tech companies in trying to inform users about the carbon footprint they may have when traveling, heating their homes and, most recently, making dinner. But airlines, ranchers and other industry groups are fighting back, saying Google’s push could hurt their sales. They’re asking the search giant to rethink the way it calculates and presents emissions data — successfully asking airlines.
The United Nations climate panel has begun to say that individual decisions matter, noting, for example, in a report last year that taking trains and avoiding long-distance flights could account for 40 percent of the reduction in global aviation emissions by 2050. How people choose to travel. But for consumers, understanding their carbon impact is tricky, emissions researchers say, because major studies often focus on global or regional averages rather than individualized metrics.
Scientists and start-ups working on emissions estimates worry that showing shoppers different data will not only fool them into thinking their choices matter, but also undermine their confidence in emissions estimates for years to come. That could hamper efforts to slow the release of planet-warming gases.
“When there is fragmentation and dislocation, it’s worrying,” said Sally Davey, chief executive of Travalyst, a nonprofit that brings together companies including airlines, Google, Expedia and Visa. tourism companies to standardize emission formulas. “If we create noise instead of clarity and consistency, people will turn off and we won’t drive the behavior we want.”
climate pledge
Since publicly setting a goal in September 2020 to help 1 billion people make sustainable choices through its services by the end of 2022, Google has emerged as a potentially powerful force influencing consumers’ personal climate footprints. That commitment has led to several new features for Maps, Flights, Search, the Nest thermostat and other Google services that collectively have more than 3 billion users. Google searches for “rooftop solar,” “electric bikes” and “electric cars” hit record highs last year, according to the company.
Competitors such as Apple, which optimizes iPhone charging based on the energy mix of the local grid, and Microsoft, which highlights eco-friendly shopping items on Bing, have both rolled out their own “green” features. But no consumer tech company can match the breadth or audience size of Google’s climate features, or the granularity of the data it pushes to consumers, down to a tenth of a kilogram of emissions in the case of protein sources.
However, Google’s chief sustainability officer, Kate Brandt, acknowledged that its mission to inform users of low-emissions options is still a work in progress. “We see that people want information, but they don’t know what is the most meaningful choice they can make,” she said. “Data is going to keep changing and getting better. It’s not static.” Brandt declined to say whether Google had met its goal of helping a billion people by the end of 2022, but said the company’s annual environment plan expires in the middle of this year. The report shows its progress.
Joro, a startup that offers an app to track and offset emissions from credit card purchases, recently reviewed four online calculators to estimate flight emissions to help consumers. Its analysis, which draws on the guidance of academic advisers such as Yale University environmental researcher Reed Miller, revealed wide disparities in routes including from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (the United Nations’ aviation agency) and the international aviation trade organization IATA offer different formulas for calculating aviation emissions, Joro said. The industry group focuses on flight time versus distance flown, and uses data from airlines on average plane fuel consumption and loads drawn from actual flights, rather than the less accurate estimates used by other calculators the group believes.
Choro also identified disagreements between Google and Myclimate, a Swiss nonprofit that advises companies seeking to calculate and reduce their emissions. Unlike search companies, Myclimate takes emissions into account from start to finish, including jet fuel manufacturing, idling planes at airports, and transit passengers at gates. Myclimate also adds some non-carbon effects, including a heating effect on the atmosphere, i.e. clouds formed by aircraft exhaust.
