Carbon Dioxide, or CO₂, is a greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change. It is produced when anything containing carbon is burned, such as coal, natural gas, petrol and other oil derivatives. In order to avoid climate change, we need to reduce the amount of CO₂ we produce, both directly and indirectly. Although some suggest that all we need to do is implement some technical fixes for climate change and carry on as normal (see Climate Engineering: A critical review of proposals, their scientific and political context, and possible impacts), the only long-term solution is to cut our CO₂ emissions.

See also Climate Action Network Europe's what you can do page. 

The average person in the UK produces around 11 tonnes of CO₂ a year.  Many climate scientists believe that we must try and reduce this to around 2.5 tonnes a year if we are going to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  To find out how much CO₂ you produce and to get some ideas about ways to reduce it, try using a carbon calculator.

Here are suggestions of some ways in which you can cut your CO₂ emissions. The information on this page will probably be split into a series of smaller pages as it grows.

Save energy (and money!)

The average house in the UK produces around 6 tonnes of CO₂.  However, a third of this (around £200 a year) can easily be saved through simple energy efficiency measures. 

The majority of CO₂ comes from the energy used to heat your home and provide hot water.  The rest is used to power appliances and lights. 

For free, tailor made, independent advice on how to save energy in your home and for information on grants and discounts call your local Energy Efficiency Advice Centre free on 0800 512 012 or visit the Energy Saving Trust website which has excellent advice on things like light bulbs and a page where you can look up which product to buy.

Buy locally-produced food

One large source of carbon dioxide emissions is in the production and transport of food. You can reduce your impact on climate change by choosing Local Food wherever possible.

The energy and emissions involved in producing food account for 22% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. 40 per cent of all UK road freight is food related. A report published in the journal Food Policy calculated that if all foods were sourced from within 20km of where they were consumed, environmental and congestion costs (such as clean-up following pollution or the loss of profits caused by erosion damage) would fall from more than £2.3 billion to under £230 million — a saving of £2.1 billion annually.

Much of the food on the supermarket shelves is transported thousands of miles around the world so that we can eat it out of season. It takes a lot of energy to move things that far, and it's mostly generated by burning fossil fuels.  An apple from Purton Farm in Swindon travels no more than 5km, one from New Zealand may have travelled 12,000km to reach your table.

Getting apples from Argentina and New Zealand and beans from Africa just doesn't make sense when they can be grown in the UK. Look at the label to see where it was grown before putting it in your shopping basket, or better still buy from Farmers Markets or other sources of Local Food for the lowest food mileage.

You could even try growing food in your garden or an allotment.

To find out where you can buy local food and for seasonal recipes visit Big Barn.

Go on holiday closer to home

Untaxed aviation fuel and the rise of no-frills airlines means it's a lot cheaper these days to fly off somewhere sunny for a week than it used to be. The price you pay for the plane ticket doesn't represent the true cost of the flight though, as it takes a lot of energy to keep that plane in the air as well as moving it from A to B, so lots of fuel burned and lots of CO₂ emitted. 

There are plenty of places to go on holiday without leaving the country.

If you want to get away from all the people and traffic and noise, you can find a nice quiet hotel or B&B in Devon or Cornwall and maybe visit the Eden Project, or you could go to Wales and see the Centre for Alternative Technology.

If you want lots to see and do then you could go for a city break. If porperly researched, London offers more than you could possibly see in a single visit. If you're the sort of person who believes in making the world a better place through one's own actions, then you will probably find Brighton very inspiring. Or you could just pick a random city that you've never visited, and see what you find there. 

Join others and make a pledge not to fly except for emergencies: http://www.flightpledge.org.uk/

If you really must make a plane journey, think about planting some trees to make your journey carbon neutral. 

Don't make unnecessary journeys

Use public transport where possible

Reduce the meat you eat!

Rather than growing food to feed to animals, so that we can then eat the animals, wouldn't it be more efficient to cut out the middleman, growing food and then eating it ourselves? 

Industrialised meat production is responsible for devastating deforestation in the developing world to make way for animal feed crops. We need those forests to recycle the  CO₂ we produce and keep the carbon cycle working, and to maintain the biodiversity still being discovered in the areas which haven't been turned over to monoculture or abandoned as deserts yet.

For more information about this, read Planet on a Plate, an excellent introduction to the problems wrought by the traditional Western meat-based diet, and the increasing role that factory farms play in exacerbating an already dangerous situation. The production of large numbers of farmed animals under incredibly cruel circumstances has lead to air and water pollution, a huge waste of water and grain, and a host of public health problems, such as the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms. (PDF document)

Reduce, reuse, repair, recycle

Making things for a very short useful lifetime, only to send them off to landfill is a waste of energy and resources. Before putting something in the bin and consigning it to be buried in a hole in the ground, think about whether it could be re-used or recycled in some way.

Switch to a renewable electricity supplier

Rather than buying your electricity from one of the big suppliers, you could switch to one which uses renewable energy sources to generate its electricity. Here are a few:

• Good Energy (based in Chippenham, so they're local too)
• Juice , run by NPower and Greenpeace
• Ecotricity, (Stroud base) invest profits wholly in windpower.
• Find renewable electricity suppliers in your area at www.greenelectricity.org

Install a solar panel (or wind turbine, or heat pump....)

As much of 40% of the electricity generated and supplied to the national grid is lost in inefficiencies in the power stations and in transmission across the country. De-centralised electricity means generating it where it will be used, and selling any surplus back to the national grid. 

You can read about the experiences of one person who gets much of their electricity from photovoltaic solar panels at the Renewable Energy generators' Journal.

Buy less stuff!

When we create the objects around us, (cars, tables, gadgets, clothes, etc.) we use energy to collect the materials, manufacture and transport them.  This creates CO_2. The more stuff we buy - the more CO₂ we create. 

People may be getting better at turning their TV off standby - but we are buying more TVs!  Also whereas in the past people may have mended broken shoes, now we tend to throw them out and buy a new pair.

One of the best ways to reduce your emissions is to buy less stuff!  And try and buy things that will last and that we can mend or reuse in some way.

Practice permaculture

Permaculture can best be described as an ethical design system applicable to food production and land use, as well as community building. It seeks the creation of productive and sustainable ways of living by integrating ecology, landscape, organic gardening, architecture and agroforestry. The focus is not on these elements themselves, but rather on the relationships created among them by the way they are placed together; the whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts. Permaculture is also about careful and contemplative observation of nature and natural systems, and of recognizing universal patterns and principles, then learning to apply these ‘ecological truisms' to one's own circumstances.

To assist with this aim, Plants for a Future have an on-line database of seven thousand useful, rare and unusal plants. 

Reduce Ones Water Consumption

Water as well as being a valuable resource, has to be cleaned and pumped, this all requires energy input ---- from the burning of fossil fuels.

Have a quick shower instead of a bath, doing this could save over 300 litres of water a week. Space permitting, you can also place a bucket in the shower to catch any waste water which can then be used to water your garden.

Turn the tap off when brushing your teeth the tap left running can waste as much as 6 litres of water  a minute.

If you’re cleaning out a dirty fish tank, keep the water for your houseplants or garden. It's rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, which provides an excellent fertiliser.

Fit a Save-a-flush (a bag of harmless crystals) in your toilet cistern - this can save up to 1 litre per flush*. To order one for free visit www.thameswateruk.co.uk/waterwise or call 0845 9200 800

Try to purchase washing machines and dishwashers which have a low energy and high water efficiency rating.

Wait for a full load before you use the washing machine or dishwasher. A full load uses less water than two half loads. Run the washing machine machine at 40 degrees, this helps conserve power.

If using a kettle only boil the amount of water you need.

A water butt could be used to recycle water for use in the garden and could also provide water to wash the car. One can fit a small internal pump allowing one to conveniently use a hose. Water butts made from recycled plastic are also available.

Buy An Electric Lawnmower

This is what I did when I changed to a renewable electricity supplier. The old worn out petrol one I took to Barn Field road dump, when I was using the car on a journey to Sainsbury near by. The old mover would have been smelted down and the metal reused. An electric mower is essentially just an electric motor and has fewer parts that might fail and need replacing. Again parts requires fossil fuel energy in their manufacture and transportation.

Petrol lawnmowers produce almost 100 times more pollution than modern cars, per unit of fuel consumed. These other, not so well known, gas guzzlers mow up to 270 million miles a year.

A typical car driver who covers 8,500 miles/year in a petrol car. With average fuel consumption of 8.5 litres/100 km. This driver will produce 3500Kg of CO₂

Condensing Boilers

When you change your boiler, buy a condensing boiler – as well as helping to save our climate it can also save you 32 percent on your heating bills.

Boilers account for around 60 per cent of all domestic CO₂  emissions.

Using a high efficiency condensing boiler with heating controls could save you up to £180 a year, and significantly cut your home's CO² emissions.

As the current lifespan of a boiler is 10-15 years, choosing a heating system with a high efficiency condensing boiler is very important!

 http://www.est.org.uk/myhome/efficientproducts/boilers/what/

With the correct heating controls,

http://www.est.org.uk/myhome/efficientproducts/boilers/controls/

Can make a huge difference to your heating bills over time.

Wood Burning Boilers

Not so well known but a very interesting renewable energy source alternative.

The National Energy Foundations Log Pile Website promoting wood fuel in the UK.

www.nef.org.uk/logpile/woodfuel/centralheating.htm

Biomass energy stored in living material such as trees or straw can be converted into heat and electricity through burning, pyrolysis or gasification. The overall amount of CO₂ absorbed whilst the plant is growing is the same as that released during combustion. As long as replacement trees are planted, biomass is seen as being carbon neutral, and clean wood burnt efficiently complies with clean air legislation.

Biomass is a fuel from any recently living organism, the form most readily available in the U.K. is chipped wood. This can be from woodland lop and top, purpose grown coppice or green wood residues from sawmills, diseased wood from tree surgeons etc. Beyond this, the primary source is miscanthus, a large fibrous grass and wood which is produced in a pelletised form.As a source of renewable energy wood fuel has huge environmental benefits.

Grants & Incentives are available in the UK.

Fit a Sava Plug

Costs £19.95 inc p&p saves about £10 a year on electricity, has a 10 year guarantee. Connect to fridge or freezer.was developed in conjunction with the Department of Energy.The 10-year guarantee means that you can rely on making savings year after year. Savings amount to around £120.00 over the guarantee period. Not a bad investment - as well as over a tonne of CO₂ saved from polluting the environment!

www.savaplug.co.uk/productdetails.asp?id=2

Cold Drinking Water

It might seem obvious, perhaps not. In hot weather, instead of running the cold tap, for a few seconds to get a cold drink. Put a jug of water into the fridge to chill, top it up as and when required. Can also use greywater for watering the garden.