Can we trust Googles carbon footprint calculations?

Published: May 14, 2023, 5 a.m.

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If you are planning a trip, but you want to check the climate impact before choosing how to get there, then beware. Google has been seriously underestimating the carbon footprint of plane flights, and overestimating that of some train journeys. And its calculations don\\u2019t just appear in its search results, but also feed the sites of more and more online booking companies, like Skyscanner and Booking.com. \\nTo be fair, carbon footprints are actually very hard to get right, as the BBC\\u2019s Climate Editor, Justin Rowlatt, discovers on his own trip to Rotterdam. On the way out, he takes the Eurostar high-speed train, whose carbon emissions depend on the weather over the North Sea that day. On the way back he catches a plane, whose climate impact\\u2026 also depends on the day\\u2019s weather conditions over the North Sea. \\nSo what is Google doing to fix its methodology and can we trust carbon footprint calculations at all? And do passengers even really care that much about the environmental impact of their journey, or should they be made to pay for it directly?

Presenter Justin Rowlatt is joined by: \\nDoug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace UK \\nDr Feijia Yin, assistant professor for the climate effects of aviation at Delft University of Technology \\nAndrew Murphy, head of sustainability at Eurostar \\nSola Zheng, aviation researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation \\n \\nEmail us: theclimatequestion@bbc.com

Producer: Laurence Knight \\nProduction Coordinators: Sophie Hill and Debbie Richford\\nSeries Producer: Alex Lewis \\nEditor: China Collins \\nSound Engineer: Tom Brignell

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