February 6, 2023

Each month I update our emission estimates to track whether we're getting closer to our individual 2030 target of 2T/y per person and I share our status here.

We use an app called Earth Hero to estimate our CO2 emissions as I find it the easiest to use for our purposes. We came upon it via Peter Kalmus who co-founded the app. Here's a nice—albeit scary—summary of what our emissions are relative to Canada's and the world's:

As the picture indicates, we're sitting at about 4.8T per person per year this month. The dotted line indicates the 2T per person target we must hit globally by 2030 (!).

When we break our emissions down, we find that our biggest contributors are our household energy (the natural gas and electricity we use in our home), and all the new unsustainable stuff we buy. Over the past year to date:

• We've driven 2,668km in our 2008 Honda CRV but mostly use our ebikes and transit to get around.
• We eat a mostly plant-based diet, except for our carnivorous toddler, but we don't each much from local regenerative sources.
• We imported 5,017 kWh of methane-based electricity and used 13,661 kWh of methane into the home for our furnace and hot water (and our renters have been using the gas fireplace quite heavily which I estimate accounts for about 1/3 of our total methane number).
• We bought $5001 worth of new goods that weren't sustainably produced.
• We recycle, compost what we can in the city compost or our garden, and do not practice humanure because we just aren't ready for that.

Compared to a year ago, we've dropped from 6T/y per person, and over the past 2 years we've come down from 11T/y per person.