How much is a tonne of CO2?

A person living in Switzerland produces on average 14 tonnes of CO2 per year. When compared with other countries, this means that Switzerland has above-average per capita CO2 emissions. But what exactly does it mean to cause one tonne of CO2 and what can be understood by it? myclimate has drawn up a comparison.

Human activities cause over 50 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, strengthening the greenhouse effect and so driving climate change. To better understand this huge quantity, myclimate has carried out some calculations for a single tonne of CO2.

One tonne of CO2 is equivalent to...

3 300 kilometres with a petrol car
a flight from Frankfurt to New York
8 800 cups of coffee
a balloon with a diameter of nine metres and a volume of around 380 m3

_{Photo: myclimate}

Every year, a person living in Switzerland fills 14 such balloons and thus produces around 14 tonnes of CO2 equivalents per year (including grey emissions). To stem the advance of climate change, these per capita emissions should amount to 0.6 tonnes of CO2 at most.

^_Sources:

^{_{Federal Office for the Environment 2021. Climate – key facts at a glance}}

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How much is a tonne of CO2?

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